Daily Devotional – March 8

Biology

Have you considered the bird called the whip-poor-will? I remember sleeping at Grandma’s and hearing the night music of the whip-poor-will putting me to sleep. This jay-sized bird makes its home where jack pine forests or oak savannas meet meadows and pastures. This nocturnal bird hunts mosquitoes, moths and beetles. On a moon-lit night, you might see it doing aerial stunts like banking, dipping, diving and hovering to catch its prey. It doesn’t build a nest but lays two eggs on the forest floor in fallen leaves. Both parents care for the young, making frequent hunting trips bringing back regurgitated bug porridge. They also exhibit one other fascinating characteristic - whip-poor-wills time their eggs to hatch exactly 10 days before the full moon. But why?

The bird chicks are at their hungriest about 10 days after hatching. Ten days after they come out of their eggs, the moon is at its brightest. Insects are the easiest to see and catch during a full moon. How did the first whip-poor-will come up with this idea? Did it have a calendar of when the full moon would appear, and then counted back 10 days for the hatching? A bird does not think about this; it comes about by instinct. The precise timing had to be preinstalled on the bird’s software, i.e. its brain. When we see such preinstalled software, we know there must be a software engineer. So, when you hear the night music of the whip-poor-will, think of the greatest software engineer, God.

The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

~ Song of Solomon 2:12

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett

References for this devotional.