"I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain." - Lily Tomlin

Let's say a duck is at one side of a lake and wants to get to the other side. Maybe there's a handsome drake over there and this female decides to go shake some booty tail feathers and see what comes of it. Or there's a six year old throwing pieces of bread into the water. Whatever.
The duck has two options. It can either paddle over to the other side of the lake or fly there.
How does the duck decide which method to use?

One method may be more efficient than the other because of things like wind direction and speed, the distance, predator alligators lurking beneath the surface, or duck hunters in a not-so-blind blind. Does the duck weigh all these factors and then arrive at what is the best choice given the specific circumstances at the time? Risk assessment with a decision tree?

Since ducks are not rational beings it can't be that they process the available options - paddle or fly - and then choose the one that makes the most sense. So why does a particular duck choose one and not the other?
And does a duck that decides to fly look down on a duck paddling over to the other side and think, "That bird brain. He's wasting time and energy when he could just fly."

Somebody needs to study this. Somewhere there's a government grant to fund the research and a Nobel Prize to be had.

I baked five dozen snickerdoodle cookies this afternoon that I'll take to small group tomorrow night. OK, I might not take ALL of them because I have to do a quality check before I serve them to others. But I've promised myself I'll only have ONE with my coffee tonight. I'll take the rest and let them take the leftovers home.

We keep the kindling basket and about a week's worth of firewood on the front porch. Sometimes Cat #2 hangs out there early in the morning.
This morning well before sunrise I went out to get a few more pieces of firewood and (thankfully) knew to close the screen door with the glass lower half. Buddy spotted Cat #2 out there and nearly ran right through the door in pursuit.
He's convinced the cat is still out there and every time I open the door he's ready to give chase.

I'm really enjoying this Sunday morning class.

It's time to go feed the goats, collect eggs, and then fix myself some supper. After supper I'll watch today's F1 race that I recorded earlier today. They were in Austin, TX, the one stop on the schedule here in the U.S.

I'm already sleepy and it's only 4:30. Ugh.