God of Creation: Bird Behavior

Welcome to the Preaching the Cross Radio Podcast, featuring the radio ministry of Pastor James W.

Knox of the Bible Baptist Church of the Land of Florida.

Our prayer is that these half-hour Bible study programs will bring the lost to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and enable the saved to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Savior.

Now here's your host, Pastor James W.

Knox.

All right.

Now we thank you so very much for that kind word of introduction.

Thanks to each and every one of you for tuning in today.

I'm Brother James, and I greet you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world, and I welcome you to the Preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast, the 30-minute program in which we do our best, God helping us and God giving us grace, we do our best to lift up and magnify the person of the Lord Jesus Christ as he is revealed in the Scriptures, in the Word of God.

We've been doing something uh rather different now for quite some time.

In fact, this will be the twentieth broadcast in a series of broadcasts, which we've entitled The God of Creation.

The God of Creation.

And while uh I am not a scientist, I have the only one hundred percent completely scientifically uh uh scientific textbook, completely accurate science textbook on the face of the earth.

Let me say that all together at one time.

I have the only completely accurate book on science, I should say, uh on the face of the earth, and that is the authorized King James Bible.

You see, all other science books are subject to change as more light is brought to bear on the particular subject.

But the Holy Bible, because it's pure and perfect from the very beginning, has never had to be changed, revised, updated, or corrected, because it's always right.

The words of the Lord are pure words, and uh purified in the furnace of earth seven times, thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them, the pure and perfect words of God, unto this generation.

In the uh National Library in France, the Louvre, I'm very poor at the French pronunciation, the Louvre as some people call it, there are six miles of shelves filled with science books that have been proven false.

They're outdated, outmoded, obsolete because uh later discoveries have proven them to be wrong.

That's never been the case with the Bible.

Matter of fact, the more scientists find out, the more they find themselves falling in line with the Bible and with the Word of God.

And what we've been doing on these broadcasts, we've been showing you from the plant creation, from the animal creation, from the atomic creation, from the uh stars in the solar system, we have been pointing out to you that there is indeed a creator.

And that creator manifests his goodness, his grace, his power, his might in all that he makes.

And we're going to talk about the birds today, and God willing next time, and uh maybe even the time after that.

Uh don't know just how long it'll take us to cover this material that we have on the birds, but we hope and pray that you'll listen carefully and God will make this material as much a blessing to you as he has to us.

Now, birds are of very special interest because they exhibit remarkable and well established instincts combined with what would seem to be intelligence.

Many birds are quick to learn new ways, and it is impossible for us to explain some of their astonishing performances.

Any animal which has a covering of feathers belongs to the bird class.

They are feathered bipeds, they are warm blooded, and they lay eggs.

Warm blooded means that they keep the same body temperature day and night, summer and winter, the only other warm blooded animals being the mammals to which we have given attention in earlier lessons.

There are five running birds with undeveloped wings, the African ostrich, the American ostrich, the emu, the cassowary, and the kiwi.

All others have the power of flight except in rare cases like the penguins of the Antarctic.

Birds are endowed with two widely open gateways of knowledge, the sense of sight and the sense of hearing.

You have watched gulls pick up pieces of biscuit from the foam in the wake of a steamer.

Not less striking is the keen way in which a hawk scrutinizes a hillside in search of young birds and mammals.

From a great height it detects a victim and descends like a bolt from the blue.

Vultures gather to a carcass by sight rather than by smell.

One vulture sees the animal stagger and fall and descends on it.

A second follows the first and a third the second, so the news spreads through the sky.

Longfellow, in one of his poems, uses this picture to illustrate the way in which misfortunes often follow one another.

He said never stoops the soaring vulture on his quarry in the desert, on the sick and wounded bison, but another vulture watching, from his high aerial lookout sees the downward plunge and follows, and a third pursues the second coming from the invisible ether.

First a speck, and then a vulture, till the air is thick with pinions, so disasters come not singly.

In addition to this keen sense of sight, birds have an equally sharp sense of hearing.

The breaking of a twig is enough to send the bird off at full speed or to make it utter the danger signal.

To those young birds hatched at an advanced stage and able to run about almost immediately, the quick ear means much.

These newborn birds come into life endowed with an instinctive appreciation of a particular warning cry which their parents utter.

Whenever they hear it, they crouch and lie motionless.

Thus in the case of partridges, the parents make a peculiar cluck plucking note, and the young birds squat flat, remaining absolutely still.

They will do this when only two or three hours old.

Yet if reared by a foster mother hen, they pay no attention to what she says, no matter how much anxiety she puts into her call.

Now what is the meaning of this?

Their nervous and muscular systems are obviously adjusted from the beginning, before birth, to answer one particular call.

Their unfailing obedience to this parental call does not mean that they have any understanding of what they are doing when they lie motionless.

Their lives depend on this sense.

They could not have developed it gradually through the centuries, they could not survive in the first place without having this equipment.

This means it was created in them.

It did not evolve.

The sense of touch in birds does not seem to be acute, except in the bills of those birds that feel their food before or without seeing it.

Thus the woodcock probes for earthworms in the moist soil of the wood, and the tip of its bill has a fine equipment of nerve endings.

The snipe also feels for food which it does not see.

Taste is not greatly developed in birds, for they are much given to bolting their food and hurrying on.

However, chickens will soon learn to avoid unpalatable caterpillars, and hungry ducklings, after one trial will refuse tiny foreign frogs with poisonous skins.

Little is known of the sense of smell in birds, and this is true also of the other senses, temperature, pressure, and balance.

Migrating birds must surely be possessed of a keen sense unknown to us, making their way accurately for thousands of miles, steering an unerring course by day and by night.

If a boy could ride a bicycle at the first attempt, that would be an inborn or instinctive aptitude.

Birds show much of this gift.

For instance, young water birds, when tumbled into the water, swim at once.

In some cliff birds, where the birthplace may be a ledge two or three hundred feet above the sea, as with the razor bills, the parents have to coax or even force the young bird to take the first plunge.

Sometimes they help down the young bird and even seem to give actual instruction.

Thus the mother, great crested greeby, takes her young ones on her back for a sail, and then sinking beneath the water, leaves them gently afloat.

Besides learning the art of swimming quickly, the same is generally true of flying and diving, pecking and scratching, crouching and lying low, but we soon come to the end of the list and then find the young bird actually learning.

Professor Lloyd Morgan observed that his chicks hatched out in the laboratory away from any bird, paid no attention to their own mother's cluck when she was brought outside the door.

Later on, when they were thirsty and willing to drink from a moist fingertip, they did not know what water was.

For even when they walked through a saucer full, they couldn't understand what the purpose of the water.

It was only when they happened to peck their toes when standing in the dish that they appreciated water as being the thing they wanted.

Only then did they raise their bills to the sky in the familiar fashion.

Later on these unprejudiced youngsters stuffed their crops with red yarn, as if they mistook the pieces for worms.

Evidently they missed their mother's teaching, but they soon learned.

Not more than once or twice did they try the red worsted or the unpalatable caterpillar.

They learned with great rapidity and did not try it again.

Diving birds will swim away at once after birth, but it may be weeks before they know they can dive.

A bird seems to need something to arouse the diving instinct, such as a dog running down the bank barking.

Without a second's hesitation, the bird will disappear under the water for the first time in its life, remaining under for some time and then peeping carefully, its head just showing above the water.

Nothing had previously awakened the diving instinct, it was the dog's bark that pulled the trigger.

Intelligence and instinct joined hands, and the power which was present at birth was now available when needed.

Creation manifest again.

The song thrush knows how to break snail shells on a stone anvil.

Miss Frances Pitt, in her wild creatures of garden and hedgerow, tells of this curious habit.

To a young thrush, which she had brought up by hand, she offered some wood snails, but he took no interest in them until one of the snails put out its head and began to move.

The bird then pecked at its horns and seemed amazed when the snail retreated within the shelter of its shell.

This happened over and over again, the bird's inquisitiveness increasing day by day.

The thrush often picked up a shell by the lip and let it fall, but no real progress was made until the sixth day, when the bird seized the snail and beat it on the ground somewhat in the same manner as thrushes do with a big earthworm.

At last on the same day, he picked up a snail and hit the shell repeatedly against a stone.

He tried one snail's shell after another.

After fifteen minutes of hard work he managed to break one.

After that it was easy.

A tendency to beat things seems to be inborn in this bird, but in this particular instance he seemed to have learned intelligently how to solve a fairly difficult problem.

Birds, like any backboned animals, often show quickness in forming a connection between some sight or sound and an appropriate action.

Professor Morgan tells of a moorhen chick, for whom he used to dig earthworms.

The bird soon learned to run to him from some distance whenever he took the spade in his hand.

It is not necessary to suppose that the bird reasoned he's got hold of the thing that brings me worms.

But some association evidently existed in the bird's mind between the spade and a pleasant hunger satisfying experience.

Now, all of us have watched birds collecting food and dealing with it.

We have gazed at the robin on the lawn, hopping here and there, cocking its head from to one side, listening intently and then making quick thrust to bring out an earthworm without breaking it, and leaning back to stretch the worm for careful removal.

The robin has apparently an astonishingly acute sense of hearing, probably able to detect the slight movement of the worm below ground.

Then we have watched robins build nests and rear their young ones, and all of us have remarked with wonderment at what we have seen.

These inborn gifts or promptings or abilities, whatever you like to call them, they're instinctive.

I am sure we'll enjoy a little closer examination of some of these wonders, such as nest making and the laying of eggs and their hatching.

We'll look at their feathers, their plunge, their ability to fly, and these are all operations of amazing interest from which we shall draw some conclusions of importance.

Now the Bible says in Luke twelve, twenty-four, Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which neither have storehouse nor born barn, and God feedeth them.

How much more are ye better than the fowls?

Jesus compared himself and his love and care for Jerusalem to the solicitude of a mother hen for her young.

In Matthew twenty three, thirty seven he speaks, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings?

And ye would not.

In Isaiah forty thirty one we are told that they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

And here we begin to learn the lesson of God's providential care for his children.

It is true, of course, that only those who have the position of children of God through the new birth have any right to pray for blessing.

It is common to hear God called Father as if every person on earth came under this divine care.

Now God is the creator of all, but in the real sense we can only call him father when we join the family.

That's the truth that we stress so many times on these broadcasts.

It is not to be expected that an individual who pays no attention to God has any right to expect God's protection and God's blessing, though by his grace he may care for you, but I believe that sometimes God actually does intervene on behalf of gross sinners, but that doesn't prove the right of the recipient of his love to claim that he is father just because he cares for them.

To qualify as a real member of God's family, you must be born again.

You must repent of your sin and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior.

We don't have too much left in the way of this instinct as we consider and observe in so many of these creatures because of our sin, but you have one remaining, a true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world in the very deepest recesses of your soul.

There is something within you that knows I'm telling you the truth when I tell you Jesus Christ is the only hope you have for eternal life.

Now you know that to be true.

Now before we deal with individual species of birds, it'll be of interest to make some further general observations about them.

As we've noticed, birds are distinguished from all other living creatures by the feathery robe which covers their bodies and which serves the double purpose of clothing and progression.

The skeleton of a bird repays inspection.

The distinctive feature in the skull of either bird or mammal lies in the jawbones, which in the former are quite toothless, and at their extremities are developed into horny mandibles that form the beak or bill.

The beak varies much in shape in various tribes of birds.

In birds of prey it is a strong, sharp and hooked uh thing for seizing and tearing living creatures.

In the fishers, it is long and pointed for piercing the prey in the water and bringing it to the surface.

The boring birds are furnished with a long, straight and pointed beak with which to dig into bark in search of grubs and insects.

The nutcracking birds have a bill, short, strong, and hooked into a sharp point.

The birds which grope in the mud for food are provided with broad, flat, shovel like bills that are soft and pliable, and the seed eating birds have a short conical hard beak, especially adapted for cracking the husks of seeds.

The neck of a bird never possesses less than nine vertebrae, but in many species the neck is longer than the body, and the vertebrae are considerably more in number.

The swan, for example, has no less than twenty three vertebrae in the neck.

These neck vertebrae are extremely pliable, while those of the back are fused into what is practically one bone, but the seven or eight vertebrae of the tail are movable, terminating in one bone which is longer than any of the others.

The ribs are fixed to the spine and are further braced by transverse processes to form a firm and unyielding framework.

The flying muscles surpass in volume all the other muscles of the body put together, and the birds that are capable of great flight possess a ridge or keel on the breastbone to afford support to the enormous muscles that work the wing.

Birds like the eagle, those with sufficient endurance to cross the sea, and even the tiny hummingbird that spends nearly all its time on the wing have well developed keel bones, but the breastbone of the ostrich, which does not fly at all, is almost perfectly flat.

The wings of birds are very similar in construction to the arms of a man, except that there are practically no wrist bones.

The upper arm bone or humerus, and the two lower arm bones, radius and ulna, are there, the little projecting thumb is there also, or traces of it, the metacarpal bones of the third and fourth fingers, and even a much reduced middle finger.

The leg bones resemble those of the mammalian quadrupeds, differing, however, in their extremities.

Most birds have four toes on each foot, although there are conspicuous exceptions.

The leg exhibits a simple but very effective mechanism.

A great tendon, connecting with all the toes or claws, passes over the joints in such a manner that when the leg is bent, the tendon is shortened.

By this means the weight of the perching bird pressing on the tendon, holds it firmly on the branch, and so during roosting, the sounder the sleep of the bird, the more securely it is held on its perch.

What an amazing arrangement.

I wonder how many birds fell off their perch and went crashing to the earth through all those millions of years while this tendon was evolving into something that would lock them in place while they slept.

Yes, don't you know I'm speaking sarcastically?

Again and again and again we see evidence that there must be a creator.

Birds may be classified according to their feet.

The foot of the perching birds, the sparrow, thrush, robin, and such, has three long, slender jointed toes in the front and a short one behind.

The Caesars, or birds of prey, possess similar but stronger feet, armed with sharp hooked talons.

The foot of the climbing bird, such as the parrot and woodpecker, is furnished with two toes in front and two behind.

The scratching birds, like the common fowl and turkey, have short, thick toes fitted with stout, blunt claws.

The wading birds, as the crane and heron, are long and slender legged for walking in the water.

Most of the swimming birds, ducks, swans, and such, have webbed feet, and the ostrich has only two short thick toes pointing forwards and providing a sufficiently strong support.

Other running birds have three stout toes.

Now everything in the construction of the bird is subordinated to the procuring of strength with lightness.

The body is boat shaped or streamlined, if you will, decreasing in circumference from the middle toward the head in one direction and toward the tail in the other, the very best form for cleaving the air easily and with a minimum of resistance.

The bones are lighter than those in mammals, and some of them are hollow throughout.

In addition to lungs, there are at least nine air chambers, all connected with the hollow bones into which the bird can force the hot, rarefied air from its lungs.

Feathers form the ariest of dresses, and are all directed from the head toward the tail, thus offering little resistance to air.

Now we've already discussed briefly the formation of the feather in an earlier lesson, but it is important enough to repeat.

The feather consists of three parts.

The quill is embedded in the skin, it is cylindrical, hollow, nearly transparent, and very light and strong.

The shaft or continuation of the quill to the top of the feather is sheathed with tough, glossy, horny material, which protects an elastic substance called the pith.

From both sides of the shaft spring the barbs, arranged with their flat sides towards each other and forming a point toward the top.

To the sides of the barbs are attached numerous slender tapering processes termed barbules, which are really little hooks or locks holding the barbs together.

Roughly, the feathers are of three kinds.

There are the clothing feathers, beautifully arranged to overlap each other to form a closely fitting garb, the long quill feathers in the wings and tail used for flight, and next to the skin soft fluffy feathers called down, providing a warm underjacket to protect its wearer against the cold.

This downy covering retains the heat of the body of the bird, just as the blanket of blubber defends the whale from the cold, icy water.

The wing expanse of every flying bird is very great in comparison with the body, and the wing muscles are powerfully developed to drive the creature through space.

There is a remarkable device in the wing structure.

On the stroke, the flat side of the feathers strikes the air, but there is an immediate case.

Change in position so that the sharp edge meets the air as the wing returns for the next stroke.

This is the same principle adopted by the oarsman as he feathers the oars.

Birds molt their feathers twice and sometimes oftener in a year, usually immediately following the breeding season.

Thus they obtain a new set of plumes to replace those which have deteriorated by wear and tear.

A broken or damaged feather may be replaced at any season.

The showyest feathers are usually worn by the male birds, and they take great pride in showing off their beauty during the courting season.

The members of the human race have no such adornment and are compelled to use other powers to present their claims to the opposite sex.

The sight of birds shows remarkable telescopic adaptability for near or distant objects.

The swallow, darting swiftly through the air, is able to see the tiniest of insects as it swoops down through the sky.

A bird of prey, even at high altitude, can perceive a small object far below and in its lightning descent calculates the distance so precisely as to snatch its prey without any crash landing.

The focus of the eye changes rapidly and accurately during the swift descent.

Birds, of course, produce their young from eggs, which have to be kept constantly warm.

It is an amazing sight to watch the gradual development of a living creature from the apparently lifeless substances within the hard shell of the egg.

The white and the yolk require no description, but it is in the latter from which will come the finished bird.

In the common fowl, the time needed is three weeks.

In other species of birds, the time of hatching varies from ten days to ten weeks.

As we watch this yoke, after a few hours of warmth, we notice a whitish streak, barely one tenth of an inch long.

This enlarges into two small ridges connected by a delicate thread, the first indication of the spinal cord.

This is quickly followed by a very tiny square white plate.

These are the beginnings of the backbone.

On the second day, a little heart is forming.

On the third blood vessels appear, the various organs are gradually built up, the feathers appearing on the twelfth day.

On the nineteenth and twentieth day, the chick pierces a tiny air sac at the blunt end of the egg.

Because it can get this small amount of air, it is able to chirp before it chips its way out of the shell.

For breaking open its shell a hard flinty cover for its bill is provided, and is discarded shortly after birth.

Is this chance or is this design?

I don't know about you, I think it's useless to even ask the question.

There must be a god.

Now I'll not go into the details of the anatomical construction of the bird's larynx or of peculiar formation, but I do want to simply tell you that the form and movements of the apparatus permit remarkable modifications of tone.

The provision of air cells in addition to the lungs contributes to the astonishing volume of sound some birds can produce.

You ought to try sleeping out here late in the morning sometime.

It's impossible.

The rooster will get you out of bed, I promise you.

Now we are all interested in the lovely song of birds.

A caged canary confined in a narrow space and cut off from all its kind puts us to shame with its happy melodious song.

No matter how depressing the circumstances, it seems never to be discouraged.

They are thankful for whatever blessings they enjoy.

They love their children and will defend them to the death.

I'll never forget watching a spellbound or watching spellbound for one quick instant as a mother canary stood bravely in the cage before an attacking cat, the baby bird shivering behind her while the cat snatched the faithful mother with its paw and killed it before I could intervene.

The Lord said, Greater love hath no man than this, than the that a man lay down his life for his friends.

A mother bird will protect her young and sacrifice herself willingly in doing it.

Do we think less of her for this display of affection?

Of course we don't.

Well, Jesus Christ once said to his disciples, I lay down my life that I might take it again.

No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself.

Here was the supreme sacrifice of the ages.

God voluntarily giving up his life, and we are sometimes told that his enemies ganged up on him and he was unable to save himself, but in light of the scriptures, in light of the word of God, this is impossible.

He came to earth to die as a substitute for you and I.

He died in our room instead.

We ask why?

And the answer comes ringing down through the ages.

For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.

I know people are sometimes put off by hearing that word salvation.

Well, call it what you will, call it eternal life, call it heaven, call it infinite, never-ending happiness, call it being born again.

But the truth of the matter is you must receive from God forgiveness of sins.

You must receive from God his free gift of eternal, everlasting life.

And there's only one way to do that.

You must believe that Jesus died for your sins, you must believe that three days and three nights later he rose from the dead, and you must believe that you are a sinner who needs to be saved.

Because when you believe that you're a sinner who needs to be saved, and you believe that Christ died for your sin and was buried and rose again, nobody will have to talk you into calling upon the name of the Lord for salvation.

You'll call upon his name, you will seek him until you find him.

And God is just waiting to hear you call.

He loves you, gave his son to die for you.

He took such great care for the sparrows, for the ravens, for the birds, for the fowls of the air.

You know he cares for you, and he does.

I hope and pray that you'll allow him to have his joy fulfilled.

Allow him to save your soul and give you everlasting life.

Thanks for tuning in today.

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Knox Sermons, our sermon audio page, Bible Baptistoland, or our website, Bible BaptistTeland.com.

Until next time and throughout eternity, may Jesus Christ be praised.