UN-NATURAL PHENOMENON OF BIRDS COMMITING SUICIDE : JATINGA

Jatinga , a place of mesmerizing natural beauty situated in the North-Eastern region of India is a village on a ridge, is located in the North Cachar Hills district, Assam State in India. It is 330km south of Guwahati. This small place of beauty is mainly inhabited by about 2,500 Jaintia tribal people.



At the end of monsoon months, mysterious behavior of birds takes place here. During that particular season birds from around the world come to this area to "commit suicide".


The most puzzling thing about this phenomenon is that so many species of diurnal birds should be on the move at a time when, actually, they should be fast asleep. During moonless and foggy dark nights between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m., flying birds come crashing to the ground with no prior warning. This phenomenon does not occur in the whole valley but only in a well-defined strip, 1.5 km long and 200 mts. wide.
During these foggy moonless nights when the wind blows from the north to south, the birds in this place remain dazed and inactive. The birds disheveled and dazed do not try to fly as if they are half dead.
Some of the birds caught there

Many ornithologists have studied about this mystic phenomenon of Jatinga, but no single hypothesis could give a comprehensive explanation about this mystery. One hypothesis is that
this strange phenomenon is attributed to 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. It is possible that these affect the nervous system of the birds making them completely disoriented and confused when they happen to fly over the Jatinga ridge. . Contrary to the popular belief, ‘birds do not commit suicide’. The phenomenon might occur due to certain conditions such as the birds might be caught in wind and fog and are disoriented. They may get attracted towards light sources of the villagers. Thus in trying to reach the light sources, they might hit trees or other sources and get injured which caused their death. Thus number of birds might have died. A similar sort of incident occurs in Phillipines during similar weather conditions as in Jatinga. In Phillipines on windy foggy, moonless nights, birds are trapped by the local people which they call Twang .Even the villagers of Jatinga trap the disheveled birds by a forceful swing of the bamboopoles or catapults, when they fly towards the light source. They even try different methods to persuade the birds sitting on the top to come down so that they can easily catch it for food. Thus these birds fall easy prey to the villagers.



But till today the phenomenon remains a mystery cause the mystery is far above human understanding....If this mystery is not solved, we may lose some species of this magnificent feathered creation of God.



And Excellent place to watch a wided varietes of birds species with good resort facilities available there.