Can't do a thing with it

Today the waders, the gulls and the kotare were all gathering as I went along the edge of Southend. Waiting for the tide to recede further and uncover the food they were all after. The herons were fairly much inactive in the time I was there, as they "know that the food is yet to be uncovered". 

I have been talking with the registrar about such things as consciousness, delusion, misperception, which slso makes me think about knowledge. 

My cousin took my father out in his boat one day in Tauranga many years ago now. To catch fish for the evening meal. He timed his departure from shore almost to the second, in relation to the tide. He stopped the boat and then moved it gently a bit this way and then that before dropping anchor. They then dropped a coupl of lines off the side of the boat and very quickly had caught a couple of good sized schnapper for dinner. Alan told my Dad that he could always catch a fish in that place at that stage of the tide.

Watching the birds, they seem to achieve the same with less fuss and presumably using their knowledge of the interaction of time of day, stage of tide, time of year, whatever. And it is knowledge, as we would define it. Perhaps we need to acknowledge that birds and other animals have more consciousness than humans have at times thought.

What Alan also told Dad, was that he found this spot by watching the birds.

Today is the fifteenth day of our level 4 lockdown, and the number of new cases has bounced back up to 75. More than half of yesterday's new cases were household contacts of a known case, and only a minority (25%) had been out in the community when likely to be infectious. The experts remain hopeful that the R value will remain below 1 indicating that we are slowing the community spread and will ultimately stop it once again.

Our Auckland grandsons have today had their first vaccination. Which news has been received in this house with great relief.