Algorithmic Daydreams

If you want to know the future, ask a heron. They see connections.
Where this seagull flies. The direction of the wind. A few ripples of lake grass. A shore full of gas masks.

Massabesic Lake is a giant party bowl of Doritos. The great blue heron snaps up a few. Preens. Snips up a few more. Shakes and stretches. Spots the one with the most orange seasoning, he’s saved that one for last, a thwap of the neck. A stab of the bill and down the hatch. Return to his regularly scheduled daydream.

It takes a few moments to seek and skewer his supper. So why stand still? Why not fly? Go for a swim? Take a nap?

What use are the daydreams of a Great Blue Heron?

Mother Nature doesn’t do arithmetic. She paints algorithmic daydreams. And when it comes to an advantageous application of algorithms, Google falls a far second to The Great Blue Heron.

The watchman. The sentry. The King and Poet. The Keeper of The Lake.

If it were not for the drought and the ducklings, I’d have missed it. How to overlook what a 6-foot bird with a 6-foot wingspan painted blue and white and gray is up to 10 feet away… nothing in the way there but Nature’s way.

When the drought came the rhythm shifted from syncopated to a new time signature. Ballad to a waltz, to a march, then barely a dirge.

What is a duck mother and father to do when the whole world changes tune every day? How do their ducklings survive when nothing makes any sense anymore?

If you want to find a great blue heron during a drought, find the ducks, find the cormorant, find the geese.

But not the loons. We’ll get to those loons. Crazy is never too far behind.
The seagulls give no mind to the drought. Gulls go where people go.

Someone has to know what’s going on when what’s going on looks nothing like the day before.

Who leads the dance when the dance is:
“What song is this?”

Or better put:
"What use are the daydreams of a Great Blue Heron?"