Were These Birds Ever “Siberian”? Or Were They Always Children of Tamil Soil?

A reflective argument from Vedanthangal, near Chennai:

Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary
Introduction: A Question That Refuses to Settle

Every winter, when thousands of migratory birds arrive at Vedanthangal near Chennai, a familiar phrase is repeated:

“Siberian birds have come.”

This phrase is spoken casually, confidently, and almost unquestioningly.
Yet, for some minds, the heart quietly resists accepting it.

Why?

Because something deeper than data begins to speak.

Can a living being travel thousands of kilometers, year after year, generation after generation, without an inner reason stronger than survival?
Can such relentless return be explained only by climate and food?

Or is there something we have overlooked?
The Birds of Vedanthangal: Not Just Visitors

Let us name a few of the birds that arrive at Vedanthangal:

Painted Storks

Spot-billed Pelicans

Grey Herons

Black-headed Ibises

Open-billed Storks

Little Egrets and Great Egrets

They arrive in flocks, build nests on the same trees, lay eggs, raise chicks, and leave — only to return again.

Not once.
Not twice.
But across centuries.

This behavior itself raises a quiet question:

Do creatures return like this to places that are not, in some deep sense, their own?
Before Civilization, Before Protection

Human civilization, organized protection, and wildlife laws are recent events — barely ten thousand years old.

But birds, as a lineage, are millions of years old.

Long before humans decided to protect birds,
long before villages decided not to cut nesting trees,
long before sanctuaries were named,

these birds were already flying.

So the question naturally arises:


Before humans learned to protect birds,
where did birds belong?
The Climate Argument Has a Gap

It is often said that these birds “belong” to Siberia or other cold regions because they breed there.

But breeding location alone does not define origin.

Cold regions pose a fundamental limitation:

Frozen water

Extreme winters

Limited survival of chicks beyond seasons

A place where life cannot sustain itself year-round cannot logically be the ancestral home of life.

Cold regions function like seasonal workplaces — productive for a time, hostile afterward.

If survival were the only rule, evolution would have eliminated such risky dependence long ago.

Yet birds return south.

Always south.
The South as an Ancestral Continuum

South India, particularly regions like Tamil Nadu, has remained free from glaciation for tens of thousands of years.

Stable climate

Persistent wetlands

Continuous vegetation

Predictable water systems

These are not temporary conditions.
They are ancestral conditions.

Places like Vedanthangal are not accidental refuges; they are continuities.

It is entirely plausible — even reasonable — to consider that:


These birds did not originate in the cold and flee south.
They originated in stable southern ecosystems
and expanded outward when conditions allowed.
Migration as Expansion, Not Escape.

We often imagine migration as escape from cold.

But another interpretation exists:

Migration may have begun as exploration, much like ancient human traders.

Just as merchants left their homeland, explored distant regions, stayed temporarily, and returned home — birds may have done the same.

They flew outward when seasons allowed.
They returned inward when life demanded.

Not because they were homeless —
but because they had a home.
The Mother’s Home Analogy: Biology Knows Before Logic

There is a human parallel that explains this instinct better than data ever could.

Even today, in a globalized world:

Women travel across countries, settle abroad, live comfortably, and have access to advanced healthcare.
Yet, when it comes to childbirth, many still return to their mother’s home.

Not because the foreign land lacks facilities.
Not because of poverty or limitation.

But because the body recognizes safety before the mind reasons.

Birth demands trust.
Trust demands familiarity.
Familiarity demands memory.

The body remembers what the mind forgets.
Birds and the Same Biological Law

Birds do not use passports.
They do not read maps.
They do not calculate distances.

Yet they return — unerringly.
This suggests that migration is not just a reaction to climate, but an expression of ancestral memory.
What humans call “Siberian birds” may simply be:

Birds that temporarily worked the northern world,
but never forgot their southern home.

Vedanthangal is not a destination.
It is a return point.
Naming Is a Human Habit, Not Nature’s Truth

When humans say “Siberian bird,” they are naming the last observed breeding zone, 

not the origin of belonging.

Nature does not label.
Nature remembers.

And memory is stronger than naming.
Conclusion: A Quiet Reframing

This is not a rejection of science.
Nor a denial of migration studies.

It is an invitation to widen the frame.

Perhaps these birds are not foreigners visiting Tamil Nadu.
Perhaps Tamil Nadu is not a refuge they discovered.
Perhaps they are simply returning —
as life often does —
to where it once began safely.

Not all journeys are escapes.
Some are returns.

Vedanthangal, then, is not merely a sanctuary.
It is not a destination discovered by wandering birds.

It is a remembered home —
a place carried quietly in ancestral memory,
a soil the body recognizes before the mind explains.

These are not foreign birds seeking refuge.
They are our own homeland birds,
returning — again and again —
to where life once learned how to continue.

-Yozen Balki

Google Map: https://maps.app.goo.gl/gaYVSXapWeSQzvv69

Vedanthangal Birds Sanctuary 

How a Surveyor Measured a Kingdom Without a Measurement Tape: Invention of Theodolite Survey

Centuries ago, a surveyor stood at the edge of a vast lake, holding a long measurement tape in his hands.

 

In front of him stretched endless water.

 

He paused.

 

“How do I measure this?” he wondered.

 

A measurement tape could not be laid across a lake.

Walking through water would destroy accuracy.

Boats would only introduce errors.

 

Yet behind him stood a command that could not be ignored.

 

The king had ordered the work to be completed.

 

And the lake was only a small part of the problem.

 

The kingdom itself spread across hundreds of kilometres—

towering mountains, deep valleys, dense forests, dangerous animals, and lands where a human foot could barely survive.

 

Measuring such a land by walking with a tape was not just slow.

It was impossible.

 At that moment, something important happened.

 

The surveyor stopped struggling with his legs

and began thinking with his mind.

 

When the Tape Could No Longer Go Further

 

A powerful idea suddenly emerged.

 

“Do I really need to use a measurement tape everywhere?”

 

What if—

just one distance could be measured accurately?

 

What if that single real length could become the foundation?

 

He realized this:

 

If one baseline was measured carefully using a long measurement tape,

and if two angles were known, every other distance could be calculated using mathematics Pythagoras Theorem.

The tape was no longer the hero.

The mind was.

 

The First Triangle That Changed Everything

 

He began by creating a single triangle—

a triangle with one real, measured side.

Thereafter the tape was not needed at all.

 

That triangle gave scale to everything that followed.

 

Then, carrying a newly refined angle-measuring instrument,

the theodolite,

he moved only through safe and accessible locations.

 

On selected hilltops,

he constructed tall stone pillars.

 

The sharp top of each pillar became a precise reference point.

 

From one triangle, another emerged.

From that, another.

 

Soon, the land was no longer something to be walked,

in a more traverse way.

It became something to be understood.

 

Mapping a Kingdom Without Walking Through It

 

Hundreds of triangles followed.

Then thousands.

 

No need to cross lakes.

No need to enter forests filled with danger.

No need to walk through swamps or valleys.

 By measuring angles alone,

and using mathematics,

the surveyor slowly revealed the true shape of the kingdom.

 

The entire land—

its length, breadth, and boundaries—

now existed on paper.

 

All this was achieved

without stretching a measurement tape across every inch of soil.

 

The Birth of Theodolite Survey

 

What began as a struggle

became a scientific revolution.

 

This approach—

measuring one baseline,

then expanding across the land using angles and triangles—

gave birth to what we now call theodolite surveying.

 

When the surveyor finally presented the map to the king,

the king saw his kingdom clearly for the first time.

 

But what he truly held

was proof of something greater:

 

Human intelligence can replace physical hardship.

 

Conclusion:

 

The day humans realized that

a measurement tape had limits

but the human mind did not,

was the day surveying changed forever.

 

That was the moment

theodolite survey was born—

not from comfort,

but from necessity, curiosity, and courage.

- Yozen Balki