By Elizabeth Prata
At the thrift store, I got this book called “Bizarre Birds”, a youth Peterson Bird guide. It lists 20 birds that have an unusual quality: such as feeding, migration, looks, call and so on. I am pleased that I’ve seen 10 of them!
Puffin
Arctic Tern
Snail Kite
Flamingo
Anhinga
Loon
Pileated woodpecker
Roadrunner
White Pelican
Roseate Spoonbill
The Peterson Guide explains how a flamingo eats:
“Did you know? A flamingo’s bill is unlike any other bird’s. It contains rows of bony plates that act like filters. A flamingo finds food by dipping its head into the bottom of saltwater bays. It sucks up the ooze and uses its tongue to force the mud out through these bony filters, leaving a rich meal of tiny crustaceans in its mouth. A flamingo feeds with its head upside down. Unlike the jaws of other birds, the flamingo’s upper jaw moves up and down instead of its lower jaw.”
Cool. This couldn’t have evolved. The first flamingo to try eating like that would drown. God is amazing in His creative abilities! I also learned that the Arctic Tern migrates from the North Pole to the South Pole and back every year. That’s 22,000 miles round trip, and mostly over ocean!
Think on Him as Creator for a moment. He made all the birds of the air in one day, on Day 5 of Creation Week. Each bird uniquely suited to its habitat. Each bird delightfully different in plumage. God’s creative ability is so infinite my finite mind can barely even comprehend how He even made all the birds of the world in one day! Along with other animals, too. Wow.
Let’s pause for a moment and praise Him.
Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.” 21And God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind; and God saw that it was good. 22God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
the-end-time.org 