The seasons have changed. Fall is in the air. These days, when I rise, I have to wait for daylight before going on my bike ride. I’m adding layers, too. Although temperatures around here are warmer than those in other places we have lived, I notice when they dip below 50. We haven’t had any frost yet, but the chill of most mornings is a reminder that frost is on the way. Perhaps it is an illusion, but it feels like the cold affects me a bit more quickly than it did when I was younger. I’ve already worn my long underwear for a couple of early morning adventures, and I have a helmet liner that I wear under my bike helmet when it gets cold. I’ve worn that a few times as well.

Yesterday was a gray day as I rode my bike around the bay shortly after sunrise. A lone heron was perched upon a pole set in the water. I always check out that pole when I go past. It is a favorite perch of a young eagle, last year’s fledgling. In my imagination, that particular eagle is nearsighted. The idea seems absurd, but since this specific eagle seems to prefer a lower perch than the other eagles in the area, I’ve imagined that his fishing goes better from closer to the water. Perhaps he is a bit less eagle-eyed than some of the other big birds.

Yesterday, however, I might have imagined the heron to be farsighted as it had chosen a perch farther from the water than its peers. I can’t distinguish individual herons from a distance, so I don’t know if this is the same heron that I often observe fishing from a rock a few feet out from shore. Since I don’t know what the birds are thinking, I like to imagine my own scenarios. In my mind, this heron is not far-sighted. Instead, I think of this bird as a heron who doesn’t like to get her feet wet.

I don’t know what heron knows. Indeed, the heron must understand that its fishing technique depends on lightning-quick neck extensions, not on diving like an eagle. I’ve never seen a heron catch a fish in flight. They are graceful flyers, but the transition from standing to flying always seems a bit awkward. I don’t think herons can transition to flight quickly enough to catch a fish. The pole must not be a fishing perch.

Maybe heron is tired from the nearly constant struggle to catch tiny mackerel for the insatiable hatchlings in the nest in the tall trees. A rookery is a hungry place of continual activity. Parent birds come and go, constantly bringing food to the chicks in the nests. I imagine that the chicks of this heron have finally fledged, and she can now afford the luxury of just sitting instead of needing to fish on every trip to the bay. But I don’t know what heron knows.

She may be evaluating the shoreline in search of the perfect place to fish, knowing that location and timing are crucial when it comes to silver fish, sacrificing all to become part of a heron in flight. I don’t know what heron knows.

I do know that heron is far more patient than I. She calmly waits as I watch her, knowing she can sit still much longer than I will. I will move on, and she will still perch quietly, examining the scene before her, caught, perhaps, between memory and hope. I don’t know what heron knows.

When I was a kid, one of the schoolyard insults was “birdbrain!” The term means stupid, foolish, or silly, but schoolyard insults are rarely accurate. It essentially meant that the person being labeled had been singled out for a bit of bullying. I suspect that such name-calling is no longer tolerated on schoolyards, but times were different then.

The term may come from the fact that birds have comparatively small brains. When you compare the size of the skull to the size of the rest of the animal, birds don’t have as much space for their brains as mammals. We raised chickens at our place, and I have many stories of chickens doing things that don’t seem to me to be particularly smart. One rooster beat itself bloody attacking its own reflection in a hubcap. Once, when a few scraps fed to the chickens landed outside the coop, a hen got her head stuck in the chicken wire trying to get at a morsel of food, despite there being plenty of food on her side of the fence. I grew up with a bias about the intelligence of chickens.

I have since learned that, although the brains of birds are relatively small, they are more densely packed with neurons than the brains of larger creatures. The types of neurons in the brains of birds are responsible for higher-level thinking. Studies have demonstrated that birds’ brains are organized similarly to mammals. Birds are capable of conscious thought. Observers have witnessed birds use rudimentary tools, a capacity once thought to be exclusive to humans.

Crows and parrots are capable of mimicking speech. The family of corvids, which includes ravens, crows, jays, and magpies, is often considered the most intelligent group of birds. Scientists have conducted intelligence studies on pigeons, finches, chickens, and birds of prey. Birdbrain should be taken as a compliment instead of an insult. It could mean that a larger percentage of the physical space of one’s brain is devoted to higher thinking and problem-solving.

I don’t know what heron knows. I don’t even know if heron is thinking. Herons likely possess a genetic memory of which foods are most beneficial and how to catch the small fish that comprise a significant portion of their diet. They know how to build nests high in the trees to keep their chicks safe, and they know that when the time comes for chicks to fledge, their first flight will be mostly gliding. Herons require time and space to transition from standing to flying.

I don’t know what heron knows, but I imagine she knows a lot.