Communications of Birds 3

Have you noticed that the birds have been making a lot of noise lately? said Pliny's mum last Sunday as she and Pliny were walking along the Brighton esplanade, looking more at the houses than at the bouncing blue sea. There were no birds in sight, but 2 people were kiteboarding, subliminally. Yes, said Pliny. I have.

I was watching a program just before you arrived, continued Pliny's mum. It was about pigeons and how they do what they do. What do they do? asked Pliny.

O you know, how they travel all those long distances. In the daytime they do it by the angle of the sun and in the nighttime they use a magnet inside their head. It is amazing, isn't it. Yes it is, said Pliny.

And, her mum continued, they used them such a lot in the war, they used them all the time. Was that for sending messages? Pliny asked. Yes, for sending messages, her mum replied, in the desert, over the sea, and everywhere. They helped to win the war.

A large red kiteboarder's kite threw a temporary shadow on the rocks nearby. It makes you wonder, said Pliny's mum, how they know when it's time to go. You know, when they all go off at once. Yes, said Pliny, it's fascinating how birds communicate and strange that we don't understand it.

What a coincidence, Pliny was thinking. I've been blogging for the last 2 days about the communications of birds. But if I told her that, she wouldn't understand it.