Message from Birds

Question

This story was narrated by Marshal Terryan, a friend of mine, and is into paper industry.

Last weekend, while he visited the local forest for checking out how things are going, he was amazed by a view. A view which moved him. A number of birds mostly, The Orchards, The Zebra Finch and The Tawny Pipit , gathered on a tree which was being destroyed. He stopped the workers and took a picture of the view. It was a rare view with these species all on a same tree.

When I saw that picture, I was amazed and wanted to share it here. I now believe, birds do have a lot of brains! :-)

I don't have a photo of that, but I got the information. Here's how it looked. I have named the birds as X, Y, Z (X for the Zebra Finch, Y for the Orchards and Z for the Tawny Pipit)

                                                                                                                                                                                                     
                                *-* *-* *-*             *-* *-*     *-*                             
                            *-* Z           *-* X   *-*     *-* *-* Y   *-*     *-* *-* 
                    *-* *-*             X       X       Y               *-* *-*         *-*
             *-*    Z                               Y                              Y        *-*
       *-*              X               Y                       Z                           *-*
    *-*                                                                                   *-* 
    *-*     Z                                       X                       Z               *-*
    *-*     Z                                   X                               X           *-*     
*-* *-*                     X               Y                       Z                           *-* 
*-*                 X                               Y                       Z               *-*     
*-*                             Z                       X           Y                           *-*
   *-*                                                                                        *-*
    *-*     Z                                  X                                    Y       *-* 
  *-* *-*                    X                              X              Y                   *-*
*-*                         Z                               Y               Y                  *-*
    *-*        X                            Y                                        Z      *-*     
        *-*                                                                                  *-*    
          *-*      Z                               Y                    X               *-*
            *-*         Z           *-* *-* X   *-* *-*         Y           *-* *-*   *-* *-*
              *     *-* *-*     *-*     *-*             *-*         *-*  *-*
            * * * *                     |           |           *-*                     
                                        |           |                   
                                        |           |   
                                        |           |   
                                        |           |   
                                        |           |   
                                        |           |   
                                        |           |   
                                        |           |   
                               -   -    |           |   
                            - -         |           |-  
          \/    -   -   -   \/          |           |   -\/ -   -   -   \/                  \/
                                        -   -                                                   -       -   -               

Can you tell me what message do the birds convey?

Answer 1

The birds in the tree spell out the message:

Save trees! Save us!

How so?

On each row of the three, there are either exactly three birds or no birds. From top to bottom, the pattern is:

ZXY XXY ZYY XYZ / ZXZ ZXX XYZ XYZ ZXY / ZXY XXY ZYY XYZ / ZYX ZXY

Now this looks suspiciously like a base-tree, er, three representation of the alphabet with 26 letters plus one special character. Replace X with the digit 0, Y with 1 and Z with 2:

201 001 211 012 / 202 200 012 012 201 / 201 001 211 012 / 210 201

Then read as base three-numbers (ABC = A×9 + B×3 + C) and pick the corresponding letter of the alphabet, where A is 1 and Z is 26.

What a pity that the tree fellers don't understand base-three encoding. A well-aimed discharge of droppings might have worked better. :(