Finding Your Way Without Map or Compass by Harold Gatty

Author:Harold Gatty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 1983-09-16T04:00:00+00:00

Barkhan or crescent dunes in snow (above) and sand (below)

This desert dune topography is not entirely confined to the world’s present deserts, for many great areas in temperate zones date from an arid past, though subsequently conquered by vegetation and cultivation. What we could almost call the “fossil shapes” of their desert dune topography remain, as does even the alignment of the dunes with the prevailing wind—showing, incidentally, that the type of country has changed more than the wind. Old dune formations in Germany, Poland, Hungary and on the moors of Gascony lie east-west, for instance; and the dunes of Sweden are aligned with a foehn wind which comes down the Scandinavian Alps, a dominant westerly, deflected south.

Animals as Desert Guides. The question of survival in deserts might, by a purist, be thought not strictly relevant to a discussion of desert navigation. However, a common-sense view recognizes that the two subjects are mixed closely together. The armed forces of many countries, of course, have made detailed studies of desert survival; and there is already a mass of literature dealing with the solution of the problems of exposure and living off the land. One of the most important survival methods which involves navigation is that which enables the traveler to find water. Water holes may not necessarily be on the intended route of the desert traveler; but a knowledge of their direction can always help him to find his position. Among the best indicators of desert water are animals. Anybody who can spare enough of a desert day to sit quietly and out of sight near a water hole, will learn a great deal about the behavior of water-seeking birds and other animals.

There are 289 species of pigeons and doves in the world; and there is no desert (apart from the ice deserts of the north and south) which does not have one or more species native to it. Birds of this order are easily recognizable by their shape and style; and nearly every species has a habit of perching in trees or shrubs near desert water holes, especially towards the evening. Usually the desert pigeons drink once or twice a day. Occasionally they drink at daybreak: always do they drink in the early evening: never do they drink during the heat of the day. It is, then, in the evening that it is important to watch the direction of their flight. An experienced watcher of desert pigeons can even tell whether his birds are on their way to or on their way from their evening drink, for their flight from water is characteristically heavy, and is accompanied by a louder flapping of their wings.

A remarkable story of desert pigeons is told by H. A. Lindsay in his Bushman’s Handbook.

In the desert of the Australian Northern Territory a whole party of surveyors were bushed without water. David Lindsay took the strongest camel and went off to look for water. He failed to find it. But on his way back to camp that evening he saw a solitary rock pigeon flutter across a gorge ahead of him.

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