Bird - watching 101: The woodpecker

Bird watching 101: The Woodpecker

The woodpecker fascinates me. I imagine butting my head repeatedly into a tree to get food and feel terribly sorry for the bird. Some of these birds peck wood as many as 12,000 times a day!  I feel like screaming: “what are you looking for there? Is there no food on the ground? Can’t you find a mate some other way? Must you live in a tree”?  Surely, some kind of evolution should have taken place to replace the need for this constant head bashing. Life should not be that hard. How does the woodpecker do it?

Simple; it was built for the job! Every part of the woodpecker is specially adapted to withstand the pressure continuous pecking puts on the bird.

Firstly, the beak is very tough and can hammer into the toughest trees without breaking. Also, the woodpecker has its own special shock absorbing cartilage between the head and beak to prevent it from brain injury. The head is so amazing that it has been studied by scientists over the years in the hope of adapting the technology for use in designing crash helmets. The brain is ‘spread-out’ to distribute the shock from constant head butting; the tail feathers and feet are specially designed to hang on to and climb trees; the tongue is long and sticky to enable it probe tree tunnels for insects and the woodpecker never forgets to closes its eyes before hitting the trees to keep wood particles out and prevent its eyeballs from popping out!

In fact the wood pecker is one bird that has been said to defy evolution theory because the earliest woodpeckers would have died if they did not have all these special body parts. They would not have survived long enough to evolve!

If God could anticipate all that the woodpecker would need and provide all these beforehand, then He must have done the same for humans. Actually, He did and does much more for humans. The task was great: “Be fruitful, multiply and subdue to earth, rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground”, so He made us in His own image and likeness. Also, we have a direct line to Him through prayer: "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him", and He promised to “supply all our needs according to His riches in Glory in Christ Jesus”.

So next time you are weary, worn out, and tempted to throw in the towel, look into the mirror and say to yourself ‘I was built for this’.

Job 12:7 “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will teach you”

Other Bible references: James 1:5, Philippians 4:19, Genesis 1