Humans tend to commit suicide if something goes wrong in their life. But, why the hell birds are committing suicide? You may think that am kidding. Of course no, the beautiful village Jatinga in Assam, India is the place where this mysterious phenomenon happening September and November each year. During this late monsoon months, several migratory and local birds commit mass suicide at the village.

Just after the sunset, which is between 7 and 10 pm, hundreds and thousands of birds descend from the sky, plummeting to their deaths by crashing into building and trees. These dazed birds are captured using bamboo poles by the locals. This phenomenon is not confined to a single species, with tiger bittern, black bittern, little egret, pond heron, Indian pitta, and kingfishers all being affected, as well as hill partridge, green pigeon, emerald dove, necklaced laughing-thrush, black drongo. The birds are mostly juvenile, according to Assam's best-known ornithologist, Anwaruddin Choudhury. Since birds aren’t known to be suicidal, the phenomenon has baffled villagers, visitors and scientists alike.

No one knows what is making birds descend from the sky. For many years, Locals believe that there is an evil spirits living in the skies were responsible for bringing down the birds.

At first, this phenomenon brought to world’s attention by the late naturalist E.P. Gee in 1960s. He drove to Jatinga with famed ornithologist late Salim Ali.

Ornithologist says, the cause of it is likely to birds are generally disoriented by the monsoon fog. So they are attracted by the village lights and fly towards them, sometimes hitting walls and trees during the descent.

To promote tourism, district authorities have created a festival around the bird suicide, called the “Jatinga Festival”. They started to celebrate the Jastinga festival from 2010.

If you are interested in viewing the rare phenomenon in person, the nearest airport at the city of Guwahati is 350km away from the village. You will have to wait until next year though! 

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