What Can We Learn From Birds

"Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" Matthew 6:26 New King James Version

So there I go, introducing scripture into a supposedly secular blog.

I sometimes wonder if people read certain of my blog posts, and then see me spouting off scripture and talking about faith and love and such, only to say to themselves, "Why the bloke's a filthy hypocrite! Foul language. Fears. Selfishness. Bevie's as neurotic as I've seen - and I've seen some bad ones."

Don't know. I've yet to attract anyone who would say that. So far, only decent people have commented. The whackos have yet to discover me. That will come, I'm sure. Got some spam comments, though.

So why the thing about birds? Well, today is "Nature Day" on A Voice in the Wind. I can't recall the last time I posted about animals. I've been so off my schedule (more hypocrisy, they cry) for so long.

Life as an animal in the wild must be horrendous. I mean, think about it. For most of them, life is entirely precarious. Starvation is a constant threat. Especially in the high heat of summer or the cold freezing of winter. Clean water is often a scarce commodity. Storms, earthquakes, floods, volcanoes. And it seems no matter what you are, something thinks of you as food. And then there is the human problem. If they are not killing you outright, they are destroying the places where you sleep, eat, and drink. Life kind of s*cks as an animal in the wild, I think.

Yet wild animals are seldom neurotic, I believe. (Animals in human control often become strange.) Around here the Kildeer get weird should you go near their nests. We have at least two nesting pair around the perimeter of our yard. We bordered our lot with speckled rocks which bear an uncanny resemblance to Kildeer egg.s. There will be at least six hatchings around the yard every year. It's hysterical to watch the tiny things run about chasing mom or dad. Last year one nest hatched three. Two were terrified at the prospect of leaving mom's side. One was bold and adventurous. The sad thing was Spouse and I knew that was the one which was going to die first. Too bold for its own good. Sure enough, after just a couple of weeks there were only two birds with mom and dad.

We feel bad when a baby bird is taken by a predator. Sometimes we find ourselves hating the predator, and wishing it harm. But the predator is just another animal, doing what animals do to survive. The reason Kildeer hatch so many eggs each year is to feed the predators - and still have enough survivors to continue the race. And animal predators are there to keep the Kildeer population low enough so that it doesn't eat itself into oblivion.

There's a famous question which I first heard when I was in high school. It goes something like this:

If you were to put 20 deer on a plat of land which could only support 15 deer, how many deer would starve to death?

I remember my first reaction was to do math. Then I caught myself in time. Wait a minute, I thought. All of the animals will be eating and drinking at the same time and at the same rate. So when there is no longer any food for one, that means there won't be any food left whatsoever. ALL of the deer will starve.

And so populations must be kept in check. We assume nature does this on its own with unerring accuracy. That is not true. Plenty of animals go extinct without any help or cause of man, thank you very much. Not that humans are free of guilt. But I don't accept that we are the cause of ALL the extinctions. We just don't seem to do much to help those on that path now. And we DO cause extinctions which would otherwise not happen for hundreds, thousands or perhaps millions of years.

Why don't humans - as a group - help? Because we have yet to learn the lesson.

"Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" Matthew 6:26 New King James Version