A video of a flock of birds flying through a city is viral with the claim that it was shot at Chandigarh’s Kalka road during the nationwide lockdown to tackle coronavirus. “Chandigarh kalka Road… Nature is back to its basics,” reads the message posted along with the video by Facebook user Praveen Chaubey on April 9, 2020. It has been shared close to 800 times so far.
Chandigarh kalka Road… Nature is back to its basics
Posted by Praveen Chaubey on Thursday, 9 April 2020
Many other people on Twitter and Facebook shared the video with the same claim.
Alt News has also received several requests on its official Android application to fact-check this video.
Fact-check
Alt News found that the video being passed off as Chandigarh is actually from River Front, Ahmedabad. This phenomenon of birds flying together in coordination is known as murmuration. The video was posted by The Times of India’s official YouTube channel on February 12, 2020. Thus, it is definitely unrelated to the recent nationwide lockdown which the country has been observing since March 24 midnight.
“Residents of Ahmedabad were taken in for surprise when hundreds of birds flocked together in sky. The spectacular scene from riverfront left viewers spellbound. An undated video of hundreds of birds flocking together is being widely shared on social media. Flocking together is a phenomenon called murmuration wherein birds fly in swooping, intricately coordinated patterns through the sky,” stated the report.
In conclusion, a two-month-old video from Ahmedabad of birds flying together in coordination was shared as ‘nature coming back to life’ at Chandigarh’s Kalka road during the 21-day nationwide lockdown.
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