Kevin Clarke wrote in news:mZfRg.5203$UG4.4955
@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net:

Here's a whacky question.
snip
So what about it? Are birds IFR equipped? :^)

Does the AAA (Avian Aviation Administration) prohibit birds from flying in
the clouds or low visibility?

My guess is that they don't. In fact, I doubt if the AAA is part of the
ICAO or whether it communicates enough with ICAO members to even be aware
of the flight restrictions placed on all us human pilots...

That said, I would guess that a bird flying into a cloud would suffer some
of the same disorientation that a VFR pilot might. Perhaps the bird might
not have as much issue with the spatial disorientation caused by "seat of
the pants" flying, but I am not fully versed in the biophysics of a bird so
I couldn't say for sure.

But certainly a bird in the clouds would not be able to use Pilotage for
his navigation method. Nor would he be able to identify North without a
good compass, GPS, or VOR receiver. I don't believe birds carry all that
equipment, though, so they would probably have to use dead reckoning.
However, since they don't normally carry this equipment anyway, they may
have to use dead reckoning for much of their navigation, regardless of the
prevailing meteorological conditions.

So the real question is, by what means do birds navigate North in the
summer and South in the winter? The answer to this question may provide
great revelations about the entire AAA air traffic control system.