This verse speaks very plainly of God's care over the birds and His appointment of the time of their migrations. Last week we mentioned the work of bird watchers and researchers looking into the migrations of birds throughout the world. Now, if you can, look at a globe of the world and consider the following facts about just a tiny number of the many millions of birds involved.
The greatest traveler of all is the Arctic tern that flies from the Aleutian Islands to Antarctica every fall and returns again in the spring—about 12,000 miles each way! A shorter journey is the 25-hour, 500-mile, nonstop trip of the 8-ounce ruby-throated hummingbird, flying from the United States over the Gulf of Mexico to Central America. How do you think this tiny bird can do this?
From various parts of Europe, storks make round-trip flights of 14,000 miles to Israel, the Nile River and South Africa. The young ones leave a week or two ahead of the parents, although they have never migrated before. How do they know where to go?
Swallows arrive in Southern California every March after a 6000-mile flight from Argentina, going to the same nest previously used. Orioles wintering in South America return in May to their summer homes in the eastern United States following a 2000-mile flight.
The Tennessee warbler, weighing about as much as two quarters, flies 3000 miles from Canada and the northern United States to Central and South America each fall. Some fly nonstop while others take short rests en route. Their close relatives, blackpoll warblers, raising their families in northern Canada and Alaska, join others of their kind in New England during September. Then the whole group continues another 2100 miles on a 100-hour nonstop ocean flight to South America. By contrast, bobolinks in the fall fly almost entirely overland from Canadian prairies to the pampas of Argentina—a 6000-mile trip—returning in the spring.
Golden plovers from Alaska fly over the Pacific to Hawaii—a 2000-mile trip —and after resting go on another 2000 miles south. Parent birds take off first, leaving the young ones to follow later. Never having done this before, who can explain how their little ones know the way to the Hawaiian Islands? One thing we do know is that these flights, and untold numbers of others, speak of the Creator's care over all His creation, from the smallest to the greatest. “Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world” (Acts 15:1818Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. (Acts 15:18)).
Library books will give you much more information, but in the following issue we will consider some of the questions asked earlier.
(to be continued)
ML-10/19/2008