Inborn Sense of Direction

Ian is very interested in the four directions - particularly North and South. When he sees birds flying in the Spring or Fall, he urgently wants to know which way they're flying, and if they turn out to be flying anywhere but southward in the Fall or northward in the Spring, he's interested in figuring out why they would stray from their proper seasonal course.

Yesterday evening, we were taking a walk around the orchard next to our house, and Ian asked me if the direction we were walking was north. I realized that it was to the right of the sunset, and confirmed that we were.

"I thought so."

"How did you know we were going north?"

It turns out, Ian figured out it was north because he had just felt a little colder than a minute before.

(April 29, 2009)