I've been thinking about something for at least a week or so. How smart are animals? I'd never really given it a huge amount of thought until I started working for Cliff at the Orchard a month and a half ago. When I first started picking peaches, I noticed that birds really like to nest in his peach trees. On the day Cliff first took me out to demonstrate how to tell a ripe peach from the others, we saw a bird squawk and fly away from the tree we were approaching. The bird kept making noises and fluttering around on the ground. It kind of looked like the bird was injured. Cliff told me that it was the bird's way of protecting the eggs which were resting in a nest in the tree. If the bird looked injured, predators would follow them in hopes of grabbing a snack, and would leave the baby bird eggs alone.
I thought the idea was genius! Cos You know, of course, that once the predator had followed the bird far enough away from the nest, the bird would miraculously heal of its wing injuries and fly away safely! This event happened over and over again for two or three weeks. I always loved seeing it cos it meant that--in nature, anyway--the protective urge was strong in parents and that they would put themselves in harm's way in order to save their babies.
Last week, I started noticing a difference in these momma birds' behavior. The birds would still squawk and fly away, but ceased acting injured. I thought that was odd. I couldn't come up with a single reason why they would change their behavior. Then, an idea occurred to me! Maybe birds are just smarter than I think they are? Could it be that--after weeks of watching me walk past their trees picking peaches--they began recognizing me and knew I was safe? Maybe not, but maybe so, yeah? I mean, dogs recognize us by our smell, don't they? And our mammalian family pets sense our moods don't they? Don't they cower when we sternly discuss with them our disappointment in the fecal matter they dropped on the floor? (ha!)
My cat, Callie, was exceptionally smart in many ways. At one point she started throwing up hairballs all over the house every day. I had started a new job that kept me away from home a WHOLE LOT and I felt like it was her way of showing me how mad she was that I was gone so much. So, I began putting her in the kitchen and blocking the way out of it with different items. I thought I had kept her out until one day, when I opened the front door, I saw her leaping over my man-made 'wall' of stuff back into the kitchen. She knew that I wanted her to be in the kitchen, so she went back over there when she knew I was coming into the house. Weird, huh? and kind of intelligent, too.
Additionally, one day--soon after my biological mother died--I was sobbing with grief on the couch. Callie, who was lounging comfortably across the room, got up, walked over to the couch, jumped up on the couch with me, lay down on top of my chest and just stayed there until I quit sobbing. Then she--in a very snobby cat manner--extricated herself from off of me and went back to her lounging spot. She knew I needed comforting and that was the only way she knew how to do it.
Actually, if we think about it properly, there is no need to be surprised that animals are pretty smart. The same Creator who designed the intricacies and amazing ins-and-outs of the human body and mind, was also the designer of animals and plants (and everything else). In a way, it is kind of comforting, really. In all things, Design is evidence–just more proof that we serve and love an amazing and intelligent Creator, yeah?
