Jatinga birds’ Mystery

Jatinga, alittle tribal village, is understood for the mysterious suicide of birds during certain weeks of the year.
At the top of the monsoon months especially on moonless and foggy dark nights between 6 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., birds aren’t disturbed by the locals but out of the dark northern skies will start to descend as they’re interested in lights. These dazed birds are captured using bamboo poles by the locals. The local tribals first took this phenomenon to be spirits flying from the sky to terrorize them. This phenomenon isn’t confined to one species, with tiger bittern, black bittern, Egretta garzetta , pond heron, Indian pitta, and kingfishers all being affected, also as hill partridge, green pigeon, emerald dove, necklaced laughingthrush, black drongo.
The late naturalist E. P. Gee brought this phenomenon to global attention within the 1960s. He drove to Jatinga with famed ornithologist late Salim Ali. The explanation for it’s likely to be disorientation at high altitudes and high speed winds thanks to the widespread fog characteristic at the time. The zoological survey of India sent Sudhir Sengupta to unravel this mystery. The most recent description of the phenomenon and its comparison with similar incidents elsewhere in Malaysia, Philippines, and Mizoram is found within the book The Birds of Assam by Anwaruddin Choudhury. He concluded that the birds, mostly juveniles and native migrants, are disturbed by high velocity winds at their roost. When the disturbed birds fly towards lights as refuge they’re hit with bamboo poles and killed or injured.
Conservation groups and wildlife officials in India have taken steps to stop wanton killing of birds across India, creating awareness within the illiterate villagers. Bikash Brahma, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests of Dima Hasao, stated the killings also because the number of birds arriving at the village has been declining gradually since the last few years. Much of this is often thanks to loss of habitat caused by “development and environment degradation”.
OVER THE LAST 100 YEARS, thousands of birds have flown to their death over alittle strip of land in Jatinga. In a town of only 2,500 people, this bizarre Bermuda Triangle of avian death remains largely unexplained.