“Thou hast made... the earth and all things that are therein... and Thou preservest them all.” Nehemiah 9:6.
Woodpeckers are pretty birds with mixed colors of black, yellow, orange, red, green, white, etc. Some, like the pileated and ivory-billed varieties, have beautiful tufts of feathers forming crowns on their heads.
Their hole drilling is principally to get at beetles, grubs and other insects inside trees. They have an amazing ability to hear these insects chewing the wood, and a hole is drilled at that spot with the bird’s tongue reaching in to pull out the meal.
Their tongue is one of the things setting these birds apart from other birds. While most have tongues connected to their mouths, woodpeckers have tongues attached to thin, flexible bones passing over the skull and coiling up behind it. Can you guess why God made it that way? The reason is that a woodpecker needs to get far back in the hole to catch the insect. If its tongue were attached to its mouth it would not be long enough. So one that stretches out far was provided by a wise Creator. The tongues of woodpeckers are also specially designed in other ways. For instance, the pretty flicker has a long, sticky one. Any ant, beetle or borer touched by it cannot escape. Other varieties have barbs on the end to pierce the insect, pulling it out of its home. Another, the sapsucker, drills most of its holes in just the outer layers of live trees. These holes form little wells where sweet sap collects. The end of its tongue is equipped with a brush, helping it to lap up the syrup.
The acorn woodpecker, named for its fondness of acorns, has an interesting practice. It drills holes in trees, fence posts, or utility poles and then stuffs one acorn in each hole. Often hundreds and even thousands of storage “cupboards” are made to assure it plenty to eat in winter months.
Woodpeckers are very beneficial to mankind, devouring millions of harmful insects. Without their help many trees would die from the attacks of insects. Thus they are another example of God’s ways of keeping a necessary balance among all things in His creation.
Where do you think these remarkable birds learned how to capture insects hidden inside tree trunks? Where did they receive the unusual features of their bodies? We know they did not slowly develop these qualities over centuries of time. They were given them by the Creator when He placed them on the earth, as it is written: “In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind.” Job 12:10.
This reminds us that we, too, share in His blessings. We are responsible not only to enjoy them, but to own Him as the One who is “the way, the truth and the life.” He, the only Saviour of sinners, invites us to believe on Him for everlasting life (1 Tim. 1:15).
ML-02/12/1984