Birds and pasta

Dinner was vegetarian pasta.
Now that many days have been spend at El Triple, Baja California, Mexico, far away from civilization and the supermarket, supplies are low and dinners become more and more simple.
But the conversation during the dinner remains rich.

Like the question that was discussed last night why birds never fly into each other.
Humans drive cars and have such poor coordination that frequently one man crashes with his vehicle into the other.
We can see many birds together, circling in hundreds, and not one collides into another.
Not even the wings touch accidentally.

Why is that?

According to the Queen of Dreams, birds have brains.
But they don't think when they fly.
They have as their flight-control their instinct.
And they trust their intuition 100 %.
Attitudes for flying that wouldn't bring a pilot in a plane very far.
While it makes the bird fly crash and colliding free.

Birds use their brains for other purposes than flying.
For example, seagulls find shells on the beach in which live a creature the seagull wants to eat.


The bird takes the shell up in the air and drops it on a stone.
The shell cracks open and voila, the seagull can eat the creature that lives in the shell.

Crows do the same.
With walnuts.


In Japan and California there are even crows who take their walnuts to where is a road with traffic lights.
When the light is red, the crows put their walnuts in front of the waiting cars and next they wait patiently in the nearby tree.
When the traffic light turns green, the cars start driving and crush the walnuts.
Once the traffic light is red again, the crows come back and are able to eat what is inside the walnut.

Hence, birds know to do something we don't know: WHEN to use the brain.
This is called Synesthesia.
The production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body.
For example colors are heard or music is seen or a smell is tasted or vice versa.
The theory is that birds in a flock, for example starlings, sense each other's closeness not visually but as "touch".
In this way they know exactly where each of the birds around them are and thus do not collide.
Despite making sudden and frequent changes of direction.



Birds are very sophisticated creatures.
But they can't make pasta.




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Warming wings

This morning a large vulture bird had landed on the pole Gumaro had planted on the beach to train his horses.

The sun coming up from the Sea of Cortez, the large bird in silhouette made a majestic image.

And then the magical thing happened.
The resting bird did spread his wings to warm them in the rising sun.

The Nikon D300 with the 400 mm lens was quickly fetched to make this image:

On the same planet but in different worlds.

To live near a lagoon means to have many neighbours.
These neighbours are mainly the birds who live by the hundreds in the shallow water.

Of course there are more animals around.
As there are coyotes, snakes, lizards and rabbits.
But they are present in a discrete way and are rarely seen.

There are also the cows and horses that come to drink the salty water of the lagoon and eat the grass that grows near it.
But they are always afraid of the Fuso Szulc and remain at a safe distance.
Hence, binoculars are used to observe especially the horses.
Because horses are fascinating to look at.
They live in a world of themselves and it is very challenging to get an idea what is going on there.
Horses are also delighting to watch for the way they move.
It has an elegancy and harmony that is most inspiring.
They move like in a permanent slow-mo.
Not that that they are slow or retarded.
They seem to have reached a state of enlightenment from where movements come completely in tune with the grass growing.

Most of the attention of the observer the birds get.
Now that they are used to the Fuso Szulc and a man moving around it, the birds have come to understand there is no danger coming from the visitor.
They continue their daily life and come very close to the encampment of the human.

Typical for the birds is that they all look the same.
There are about 20 different horses coming to the lagoon and several of them look in a way that they can be recognised and identified.
But birds are all identical.
There are not even young birds and older ones.
They all seem to have the same age.

Most dominating bird in the lagoon is this one:



No idea how it is ornithologically called.
It has long legs and a long upward beak.
It considers itself the king of the lagoon.
It tolerates a smaller species but any other bird coming close is in trouble.
When occasionally a sea gull accidentally happens to like to inquire what the lagoon is about, immediately one or two Kings of the Lagoon get airborne and loudly chase away the intruder.
This is spectacular to see because they operate like dive-bombers.
They don’t even hesitate to attack and chase away very large Men at War-birds, three times their size.



The other kind of bird very present in the lagoon is this one:



They live in large groups and spend the whole day roaming the shallow water looking for food.
What is incredibly remarkable of this bird is that frequently all of them at a magical moment suddenly get airborne.
Why that particular moment is not to understand.
There is no sign, warning or other trigger.
It simply suddenly happens.


Next, they do some spectacular flying manoeuvres above the lagoon.
They fly in a group of one to two hundred of them and make many sudden twists and turns.
It seems there is some magical force directing these aero-acrobatics because the hundreds of them change direction together in perfect sync.
This way, that way, upwards, downwards and all hundreds of them exactly at the same time.
And never a bird crashes into another one.
While they fly at high speed.



All these birds live in groups and this they manage to do in a certain harmony.
Sometimes they have things to settle it seems and they threaten or chase each other, but it always ends peacefully like nothing happened.

Obviously these birds have an incredible high level of collective consciousness.
We humans have a consciousness of ourselves and keep that very private.
We are not very good hooking up our consciousness to that of others and have it operate as a shared consciousness.
We do know that we have a subconscious collective consciousness, but we have allowed that to vanish.
But among birds, the ones living in groups, it seems that there is hardly a private consciousness.
And this is understandable: a single small bird has very little chance of survival.
When they are by the hundreds together, their sheer number protects them.

In order to keep the level of collective consciousness high the birds in the lagoon use their voice.
Constantly they communicate with each other by making sounds with their voice.
To inform each other they are there.
And of course to give warnings.

Very surprising was to learn that this constant chirping and twittering goes on even at night.
These smaller birds seem not to sleep.
They need to continue to audio communicate and the question is what in fact they are talking about.
Or is it only a way to inform the others of being there?
That these birds need to feel they are all there and OK?

Birds are living creatures, just like us.
We share the same planet.
But in fact birds and humans are like aliens for each other.
On the same planet but in different worlds.







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This morning

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Wishing China and the rest of the world beautiful and successful Olympic Games.










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flying friends singing

While living at El Triple, right next to the ocean, there was the constant sound of the waves breaking on the beach and the rocks of the cliffs.
Sometimes this sound would be so strong that it would disturb sleeping.

At the lagoon it is different.
Because the Fuso Szulc is behind a row of dunes, the sound of the waves of the ocean is dampened and softened.
It is a peaceful background sound.

Of course the lagoon is not making any sound, as it is more of a muddy swamp.
But this makes it an excellent feeding ground for hundreds of birds.
And these birds sing.
Constantly they are making themselves heard.
It seems that their collective conscious is updated constantly through sound.

Sometimes though this constant bird singing, that is one of the most beautiful things one can hear, changes into shrieks of panic.
This means a large bird has arrived who basically has no business showing up above the lagoon except for maybe snatching a small bird for breakfast.
This is a hobby of large birds like a “man of war”, also known as the “frigate bird”.


But once this magnificent bird shows up above the lagoon, some of the largest swamp birds go airborne and always as a pair fly towards the “frigate bird”.
While they are relatively small they attack the huge bird and always manage to chase him away.
The defenders return to the lagoon, peace is restored and the constant chatting of the birds resume.

Meanwhile the production of the new photo book “The PS-series” progresses.
Several fervent and loyal blog readers have edited the text and the birds of the lagoon sing specially for them today.
Now also the cover of the new photo book is ready and fervent and loyal blog readers are kindly offered the opportunity today to have a sneak preview.

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To learn more about the frigate bird, click on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frigatebird







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