Proverbs 23:
5 Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.
6 Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats
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Just a quick post with a couple of interesting Bald Eagle stories.
1 Corinthians 6:
2 Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
3 Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?
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This is a cute button of a bird, one of the smallest sparrows. It has such a fun sounding Latin name, Spizella pusilla. Say it a few times and you will not forget its name. It’s specie name, pusilla means tiny.
The Field Sparrow is overall more pale than other sparrows. This photo shows the faded appearance of the crown.
I am curious, what color is this bird’s bill? Every field guide I have looked at calls this color pink. I think it looks orange. What do you see?
And off topic…
Finally!
Genesis 11:
6 And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
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As we entered into the world of birding, we discovered some strange and unusual bird names. This is one of them.
Pied-billed Grebe
At least it is easily pronounced. You do not want to know how we slaughtered Merganser, Scaup and other names. It’s probably a good thing we do not live within the Pyrrhuloxia’s range.
The Pied-billed Grebe is an interesting bird. It looks like a duck, but it isn’t. Here is a link to show you what their feet look like. They are very similar to Coots’. The Pied-billed’s feet are closer to their back end. Because of this, they cannot walk on land very well, nor can they take off unless they are in water. They belong to the order, Podicipediformes, which means “Rumpfoots”. These birds are excellent divers and this is their means of escape from predators.
You may wonder about why this is called a Pied-Billed Grebe. This has nothing to do with a flaky crusted dessert. “Pied” means two or more colors.
Bird facts from Iowa Birdlife by Gladys Black
James 2:
14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?
15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?
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We truly are enjoying the visitation of Common Redpolls. How they got stuck with “common”, I’ll never know. It is called Mealy Redpoll in other parts of the world. But does “mealy” sound any better than “common”?
Recently, I learned that some birds will do some very unbird-like behaviours. One of these is a Le Conte’s sparrow burrowing among tall grasses. Warning: Our computer has no sound, so I am not aware if anything was said.
Another fascinating behaviour is done by our delightful Redpolls. They will burrow into the snow, where they will sleep at night. This helps insulate them from the cold.
The day after we saw first saw these Redpolls, one of the children found this. He said it was maybe two feet long. This was after a little melting occurred, so it may have looked different earlier in the day.
I will admit, this may very well not have been done by a Redpoll. It could have been a mouse/vole, but the thing was, there were no mouse prints around this area. We did not have much wind with this snowfall to obscure any. This remains a mystery unless we actually get to see Redpolls digging, but it is neat to think it possibly might be.
A female Common Redpoll enjoying food away from the crowd.
Once again, I am in awe of how creative our God is. He has thrown so many surprises into his creation that there should never be any reason for us to get bored.
Psalm 55:
20 He hath put forth his hands against such as be at peace with him: he hath broken his covenant.
21 The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.
22 Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.
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Warning: Bad photo alert.
I had no idea these little birds wintered here. My field guides all say they are here for migration only.
I’m a little Butterbutt.
What!?
You don’t believe me?
I just don’t know what to do to convince you to get your nose out of the guide.
So…
Bye-bye!
For those of you who may not know this… Butterbutt is one of the common names for Setophaga coronata
Mark 9:
35 And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all.
Not related to the post. I don’t have many new bird pictures right now.
You know how it is… you’re eating your breakfast cereal and with nothing else in front of you, you start reading the box.
Today, I opened a box of a never before tried cereal- organic Heritage flakes. Looking at the ingredient list, I about cracked up. Among all the other organic ingredients was “whole millet”. Hey, those are the little white things in our bird seed mix! Funny.
One of the statements on the box took me back some years. “Leave the earth in better condition than what you found it.”. I remember hearing in various youth and single church groups a similar admonition whenever we were at a public place. “Leave this place cleaner than what you found it.” This was done so we could be a witness to the owners/managers of where ever we were at.
So… as a Christian, are you living this? Will you leave this planet in a better, healthier condition than what you found it?
This is a good time to share (or remind those who’ve already perused my site) about A Rocha. You might find this unbelievable, but this is a Christian conservation organization. YES, there is an option out there for those of us who believe in creation as told in Scriptures, but yet care what is happening to the earth.
A Rocha is the Portuguese for rock and founded by Peter Harris, an Anglican minister. His story is in the book, Under the Bright Wings. The organization is interdenominational and is located in nineteen countries.
