“Yea, the stork in the heaven [knows] her appointed times; and the [turtledoves] and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming.”
Jeremiah 8:7
This Bible verse tells us very plainly of God’s care over the birds and His appointment of the time of their migrations. Last week we mentioned that much research had been done by ornithologists, investigating the migrations of birds throughout the world. Let’s get a map of the world and look at the facts about just a few of the many millions of birds involved.
The greatest traveler of all is the Arctic tern. This bird flies from the Aleutian Islands to Antarctica every fall and returns again in the spring -some 12,000 miles each way! A shorter journey is the 25-hour, 500-mile, nonstop flight of the ruby-throated hummingbird. This 8ounce wonder flies from the United States over the Gulf of Mexico to Central America. How can this tiny bird 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 storks fly 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 after a 2000-mile flight.
The Tennessee warbler, weighing about as much as two quarters, flies some 3000 miles each fall from Canada and the northern United States to Central and South America. Some fly nonstop. Others take short rests en route. Their close relatives, blackpoll warblers, raise their families in northern Canada and Alaska. In September, they meet other blackpoll warblers in New England, and 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.
Golden plovers from Alaska fly over the Pacific to Hawaii - a 2000-mile trip - and, after resting, fly another 2000 miles south. Parent birds leave first, leaving the young ones to follow later. Never having done this before, can anyone explain how the young ones know the way to the Hawaiian Islands? One thing we do know is that all of these migrations show us 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 15:18).
Many library books will give you much more data than we have space for, but next week we will consider some of the questions we asked here.
(to be continued)
ML-09/30/2001