When I was in Sedona in February, I learned a lot about the earth’s magnetic field and how the migrations of certain animals have been disturbed by what can only be called a shift. Well, my wife just got back from California with another interesting story.
In Sedona, I learned that a lot of migratory animals are no longer migrating. Normally every year, these animals would follow some sense, and head south in the winter, and north in the summer. For some reason, they have stopped. It is felt that something in the magnetic fields has shifted and the animals don’t know what to make of it, and obviously can’t follow it.
Let’s take the Baltimore Oriole. I’m not talking about the baseball team. I’m talking about the bird after which the team was named. Many years ago, the Oriole spent summers in Baltimore (which is how it got its name), and winters south of there. I remember seeing them in the yard every now and then when I was a kid. The Baltimore Oriole doesn’t come near Baltimore anymore. Maybe the neighborhood changed too much.
At any rate, as I said, my wife recently returned from a trip to California. While there, she took a day trip to the island of Capistrano. One of the things Capistrano is famous for are the cliff swallows that live there in the spring and summer months. Each year around October 23rd, the swallows start flying around in a swirling mass, and eventually head to their summer home some 6,000 miles south of there.
In the spring, these birds would return in the same type of mass around March 19th. It used to be quite a tourist attraction to see thousand upon thousands of birds flying in a huge mass overhead (not quite like the Alfred Hitchcock movie). There have been many references in film about this. One character would tell the other that he would meet her there ‘when the swallows return to Capistrano’.
One of the things my wife learned on her visit there is that the swallows no longer come back to Capistrano. Now if that isn’t a sign of change, I don’t know what is.