“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” (Matthew 6:26).
For centuries people have marveled at the twice-yearly migration of birds, often covering distances of thousands of miles with an uncanny accuracy which often defies scientific understanding. Take, for example, a little creature known as the Tennessee warbler, a bird weighing less than half an ounce or about the weight of an American quarter or a Filipino peso. It migrates some 3,000 miles overland from the nesting sites in Canada to wintering places in Central and South America. Every year the little bird seeks out the same general locale as it wintered the previous year. Then in spring, it flies back to the same spot from whence it came.
Another incredible migration takes place when the tiny blackpoll warbler makes a non-stop, 2300-mile flight across the Atlantic, taking some 86 hours over water. To take advantage of the best possible winds, these remarkable little birds may fly at an altitude of 21,000 feet, making their journey unique in both altitude and duration. Think of it, flying without oxygen, without a map or compass, yet passing on this remarkable instinct from generation to generation.
Arctic birds, some of which are very large compared to the blackpoll warbler, may migrate by the millions. Professor Sidney Gauthreaux, Jr. will never forget the night he took radar and scoped the path of migrating birds. In a six-hour period of time, millions of birds crossed his field of radar. He estimated that 50 million birds were flying through the area over a 50-mile front.
Just now scientists are beginning to understand how remarkable the genetic make-up is that allows birds to do these heroic feats. The blackpoll warbler stores metabolic fuel for the non-stop flight that would be the equivalent of a human being’s running four-minute miles for 80 hours.
Some think that the magnetic poles of the Earth serve as a kind of direction marker. Some birds seem to rely on visual direction in migration while others undoubtedly have an innate sense of direction which reads like a compass; yet seemingly the more scientists know about the tiny brain of a little bird, the more confused they seem to become, because nothing exactly fits into neat little boxes which can be labeled, thereby evaluating all our bird friends the same way.
At creation God said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky … And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:20, 21). And ever since then, the skies have been filled with these remarkable little creatures who awaken us in the morning with their chirping and sweet songs and at times disturb our sleep at night with their calls.
But there is one thing for certain: they serve to remind us that nothing in our lives escapes the notice of our heavenly Father, who observes even the death of a little sparrow. Jesus asked, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father” (Matthew 10:29). I, for one, never cease to marvel at the complexity of the navigation system of these little-feathered friends, something that scientists have been centuries even understanding but will never duplicate. I would as soon believe that it just happened as I would believe a Boeing 747 just happened.
When you take time to observe the brilliant feathers of some birds and the subdued camouflage of others, remember that God designed each to fit his habitat. What a marvelous creator who knows what each of his children or his creatures really need.
Resource reading: Matthew 6:25-34.
