As usual while surfing I came across with a nature's strange phenomenon which touched my heart in an unusual way. Thought it may interest many so posting it on my blog..
Jatinga, a beautiful tribal village in the North Cachar Hills district (Assam), is famous for the bizarre phenomenon of annual ritual of migratory "birds committing mass suicide". Unbelievable ? This phenomenon remains a mystery at Jatinga, that has baffled ornithologists for more than a century now.
At the end of monsoon months, mysterious behaviour of birds takes place. During moonless and foggy dark nights between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. the flocks of birds plunging to their deaths by crashing from sky to the ground with no prior warning whatsoever..This phenomenon is not confined to a single species. Tiger Bittern, Black Bittern, Little Egret, Pond Heron, Indian Pitta and Kingfishers all being affected.
Popular Hypothesis :-
The weather conditions make changes in the electro-magnetic characteristics of the Jatinga ridge. The ridge is bounded nearly on all sides by fault planes. This combined with the mineral content of the valley with its high magnetic properties could be responsible for certain geo-physical changes in the atmosphere here. These are enhanced during the monsoon months of September and October when the ground water comes up almost to the ridge top of Jatinga. All these are believed to cause certain unusual changes in the gravitational pull around the region. The cause of it is likely to be disorientation at high altitudes and high speed winds due to the widespread fog characteristic at the time and disturb the physiological rhythm of the local birds and they start behaving abnormally towards the sources of light lit by villagers. Conservation groups and wildlife officials in India have taken steps to prevent this wanton killing of the birds, creating awareness in the illiterate villagers. Since then, the amount of birds killed have decreased by about 40 percent.
However, no single hypothesis comprehensively explains the Jatinga mystery and research still going on to unravel the real cause behind this un-natural phenomenon. Whatever the reason, now Jatinga is one of the hot tourist spot because of this rare happenings..
Courtesy by Wikipedia and various sites
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