Some time ago, while watching swallows in a circular flight over a lake, I saw the unexpected occur. One of the aviators flew down to the lakeshore, collected what appeared to be a down feather, perhaps from a goose, and then returned with it to the circle of flight. Once there the bird released the feather, but on each pass would dip down, catch the drifting plume, and return it to the level of flight. The feather was being juggled. As if that were not enough, the flyer once again visited the shore, collected a second feather, flew back up and released it. For a glorious time while I watched, this genius swallow was juggling two feathers in circular flight.
A sudden awareness came over me that wild creatures are not mindless automatons. This bird must have noticed the down feathers on the shoreline below, pondered the possibilities for action, and decided upon that specific form of self-expression. The diverse forms of wild creatures in our natural world are not limited in their behavior to the confines of our expectations. The naturalist Loren Eiseley, Ph.D., was accurate in his observation that nothing is “natural” about nature.