DUCKS, DOVES AND PIGEONS
Read the passage given below:
1. Ducks, doves and pigeons do not look as though they’re exactly brimming with intelligence. Sure, some ducks do look like costume party dandies but not when they waggle their bottoms and spend in the water and start revolving, not to mention open their beaks and talk. As for doves and pigeons, they look plain stupid, what with their mindless pirouetting and crooning calls.
2. Ah, but appearances can often be misleading. Imagine this: it’s early winter and you’re at the edge of a lake. On which may be a thousand ducks of all sorts are disporting themselves. NRI ducks. They’ve flown maybe 5,000 km from some godforsaken Siberian wilderness to be here — and have been doing this forever. And they’ve arrived here virtually on the same day as they did the year before and the year before that.
3. What’s worse, is that we still don’t know exactly how these birds do it. We’ve homed in (excuse the pun) on several clues: we know birds have a magnetic compass thingy in their little bird brains and buried in their beaks, which sort of enables them to “see” the earth’s magnetic field, we know they follow “leading lines” such as river courses, coastlines, mountain ranges and now probably expressways. We know they use the sun and stars to plot course, we know some have incredible hearing and can hear the surf on Bondi Beach while hundreds of miles away. We know that what sets them off on their journeys, is “photoperiodism” — the length of the day (rather than the weather), which gives them the urge to be up and away, rather (I like to think) like the urge one has to go to the bathroom (answering nature’s call after all!) after a couple of pints. We know why they make these humongous annual north to south journeys: the northern hemisphere turns icy and hostile in winter and all insect and plant life (food) dies, the southern hemisphere is balmy and hospitable — the perfect holiday resort. We’re beginning to discover the routes they fly, by sticking tracking devices on them, so we can protect these routes. We know, we know, we know. But what we still don’t know is how they mix all of these talents together.
4. It gets worse when you learn how some of these guys have made the journey. Bar-headed geese fly over the Everest, which must be like singing opera and running cross-country at the same time. Some waders make non-stop trans-oceanic crossings, covering thousands of kilometres, others transit en route without Schengen visas. A flock of 500 ducks can land simultaneously on a lake without crashing into one another — try that with a squadron of MIGs. Big birds (like geese and cranes) fly by day, the tiny-tots fly by night, using the stars to navigate.
5. Migratory birds are hardwired and programmed to fly up and down every year; Apparently while not using logic and reason like humans do they still end up doing a better job of going from one place to another.
Choose the correct alternatives from the options given below:
(a) By mentioning that the appearances of the birds can be misleading, the writer wants to say that
(i) they are actually highly intelligent creatures
(ii) they can fly 5000 km from Siberia every year
(iii) they arrive on the same day every year
(iv) they are as stupid as they look
(b) These birds take the same route without fail every year because
(i) they use the sun and the stars to plot their course
(ii) they follow the course of the rivers/coastlines/mountain ranges etc;
(iii) of the magnetic compass fitted in their brain and beak
(iv) all the above
Answer the following questions briefly in your own words :
(c) What does the word `photoperiodisim’ refer to?
(d) Why does the writer refer to the birds as MI ducks’?
(e) Pick up an example from the passage that illustrates the keen listening power of the birds?
(f) Why does the writer describe the winter as being ‘hostile’ towards the birds?
(g) What does the writer want to express by mentioning MIGs?
(h) What feature of the southern hemisphere makes the writer refer to it as a ‘perfect holiday resort’ for the birds?
Find words from the passage which mean the same as each of the following:
(i) twirling (para 1)
(j) gentle/pleasant (para 3)
ANSWERS:-
(a) (i) (b) (iv)
(c) ‘Photoperiodism’ is the response birds have to changes in the length of the day due to change of season, rather than weather, which gives them the urge to migrate.
(d) In the passage, the writer asks us to imagine a lake during winter, populated with ducks. The writer describes them as `NRI ducks’ to imply that these ducks do not reside near this lake all year, but fly thousands of miles from another place (such as Siberia) for the winter, and do so on the same day every year. (Should the answer elaborate the full form? Non-Residential (Indian?) ducks?)
(e) To illustrate the keen hearing power of birds, the writer mentions that some birds can hear the surf on Bondi Beach from hundreds of miles away.
(f) The writer describes the winter in the northern hemisphere as ‘hostile’ to birds because their main food source — plants and insects — cannot survive in the cold. As such, birds cannot survive in such places during winters.
(g) The writer uses certain examples to show that while birds do not have powers of logic and reason like humans do, they manage to do certain things without error, which humans may not be able to do. For instance, while 500 ducks can land on a lake together without crashing into each other, it would not be possible for humans to do the same with a squadron of MIGs.
(h) In contrast to the icy cold northern hemisphere during winters, the southern hemisphere is balmy and hospitable. The warm weather and availability of food in the southern hemisphere make it a perfect ‘holiday resort’ for birds.
(i) Pirouetting.
(j) Balmy.
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