How Do They Do That?

​The wonders of Nature are the wonders of Nature. I suppose they are not wonders to themselves. They’re just doing their everyday thing. They can be wonders to us if, as Jesus likes to say, we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. From time to time in the past, I have had my momentary oohs and aahs. But now, as I quickly approach my 85th birthday and my prospects of seeing those wonders for an open-ended time have become more consciously limited, I am paying more attention to what’s out there. And perhaps even more incredible than those things of natural beauty and competence themselves is my recurring question: How do they know how to do the breathtaking things they do?

As I write these words, it’s early October. Here in mile-high Boulder, Colorado, the evenings, nights, and mornings are cool. One recent morning this month, the temperature was 44 degrees Fahrenheit when I got up. But by the afternoon, including that one, the temperature had climbed up to the low eighties. The continuing heat notwithstanding, the green leaves were turning yellow and beginning to fall. They knew how things really stood. How did they know that?

The days of course are growing shorter just as in spring they grow longer. I have vague memories from high-school science which gives me some sense of how that happens. But how do small animals like birds and rabbits know how to bring babies into the world without the benefit of a midwife or a hospital? Okay, we say it’s “instinct.” But how wonderful and mysterious such instincts are! We have a lovely 15-year-old calico cat named Zoe. I marvel at her ability to find elegant, relaxed positions and, during her waking hours, to groom herself. She also has an amazingly accurate internal alarm clock that tells her exactly when it’s time for her next meal. She comes to me at such times, in wonder I suspect, that I don’t have such a built-in device myself. (Of course, I do. It’s just that I want to finish my blog or whatever else I’m working on at the time before feeding her.)

On my daily walks I’m being much more observant of my environment and the treasures they contain. Today, for example, I saw a cloud formation that knocked my socks off. It was over our Front Range foothills to the Rockies and resembled a croissant spotlighted in the changing colors of the setting sun. National Geographics Magazine is full of stories of the wonders of Nature as is the documentary series Nature on PBS. One story that particularly intrigued me was about certain migratory birds that travel up to 12,000 miles across the ocean to their alternate habitat. They know to tank up on food and body weight prior to their migration, since they will be fasting during their long nonstop flight. Apparently, these birds have evolved to the point where the two hemispheres of their brain can function independently, so that one side sleeps while the other side stays up to keep the creature flying. Not only that, but they have an internal GPS system that enables them to land in just the right spot after a 12,000-mile radar-less flight.
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So my question to you and myself is simply HOW DO THEY DO THAT?!

A glorious tree I photographed on this October afternoon’s walk.