Here there is a rectangular patch of land with dense trees.
On this day there was strong wind parallel to that pach of land, so there was a section with little wind covered by the trees between two wind corridors.
A number of small birds was there. They were slighlty bigger than the usual little birds we see in urban parks and that I feed at my house balcony. They seemed much more aerodynamic, geared for high speeds and agility.
For more than an hour, I witnessed as those birds were doing laps between the two wind corridors.
They would speed by themselves along the windless part or the circuit and when they reached the wind section after leaving the cover of the trees they would spend a few seconds almost still in the air, sustained by the strong wind, and then they were shot like arrows back to where they came from as they caught the force of the wind.
They were using the wind wall as slingshot and doing round trips for over an hour, occasionally resting in a fence at the other edge of the tree wall.
As there was no obvious benefit from this behavior, I can only conclude that they were doing it as a play, they were enjoying it. They were playing like our kids do.
And that seemed a very interesting thing in itself, compounded by many of its implications.
I felt happy for them. I reminded of some bigger birds I have seen when surfing in the sea, that pierced waves consecutively when they could just fly above them.
Compliments of the Author 