A wealth of communication options squanders precious hours and wastes entire days if I succumb to the endless options tailor-made to fit my every need and whim. If I feel succinct, I can tweet; if words are bubbling unfettered, I should blog; if internet scratches my itch, I must share my findings with friends. If I need transport, I'll hail Uber. For directions, I have audio escort from Google. A delivery? Surely an Amazonian drone can be summoned in the near future. Dial, send, email, text, tweet, share (Instagrams, Snapchats, etc., etc., etc.) attach, download, upload, and, most importantly, have funds at hand in order to maintain position on the leading edge of whatever is next. Such ever-expanding technological possibilities for communication pique my interest, but mostly I read about them rather than embrace them.
More fascinating to me is the seagull grapevine. How do those airborne opportunists learn about, and then share their news, that someone is swathing or baling hay or doing any fieldwork, all of which attracts them en masse? Perhaps I should be satisfied with the reassurance of knowing where Jim is working, even when his equipment is out of sight, thanks to a gull entourage that I count on to arrive within moments, to wheel overhead, and pinpoint his location as reliably as any GPS monitor. Of course, the keen-eyed gliders converge with brazen confidence that something tasty and easily nabbed--even an occasional snake--will be exposed as compensation for their efficient networking.
We welcome their rodent control, but cringe when one of them captures a young killdeer or curlew, partridge or pheasant. Every time a precocious hatchling sprints under an adjacent windrow, we applaud its courage in the face of daunting gull power and hope that it will survive the hazards of adolescence and grow to plump maturity on Prairie Island grubs, grasshoppers, and grains.
For now, the local gull communication network is safe from my curiosity, for its users neither leak classified secrets nor record private conversations, and, as yet, I have been unable to hack into their system.
More fascinating to me is the seagull grapevine. How do those airborne opportunists learn about, and then share their news, that someone is swathing or baling hay or doing any fieldwork, all of which attracts them en masse? Perhaps I should be satisfied with the reassurance of knowing where Jim is working, even when his equipment is out of sight, thanks to a gull entourage that I count on to arrive within moments, to wheel overhead, and pinpoint his location as reliably as any GPS monitor. Of course, the keen-eyed gliders converge with brazen confidence that something tasty and easily nabbed--even an occasional snake--will be exposed as compensation for their efficient networking.
We welcome their rodent control, but cringe when one of them captures a young killdeer or curlew, partridge or pheasant. Every time a precocious hatchling sprints under an adjacent windrow, we applaud its courage in the face of daunting gull power and hope that it will survive the hazards of adolescence and grow to plump maturity on Prairie Island grubs, grasshoppers, and grains.
For now, the local gull communication network is safe from my curiosity, for its users neither leak classified secrets nor record private conversations, and, as yet, I have been unable to hack into their system.
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