Nature Nugget – Bird Migration

For survival, birds require food, water, protective cover, and a sheltered place to nest. Unfortunately, many bird habitats are suitable for them for only part of the year. Changing seasons can transform a comfortable, food-rich environment into an unlivable one where temperatures are freezing, food is scarce, and vegetative cover has vanished. In order to survive, birds have to either adapt to these changes or leave for fairer parts.

Most birds, in temperate areas of the world, adapt by taking up migrations to areas with less harsh winters or to areas with tropical climates. Some even migrate to temperate areas on the opposite side of the globe to enjoy their second spring and summer seasons for the year. When spring rolls around again, they return to their original home to nest and to take advantage of the abundance of food and cover that the warm season brings to these areas.

People living in the Northern Hemisphere are used to the birds flying south for the winter every fall and back north again in the spring to nest. In the Southern Hemisphere, it is just the opposite; birds fly north in the fall and south in the spring. When it is winter in the Northern Hemisphere, it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere and vice versa.

One of the more famous examples of bird migration involves the return of the swallows of Capistrano. Every year, around March 19, Cliff Swallows return to nest at the Mission San Juan Capistrano in Capistrano, California. So regular and reliable is their arrival around that date that the people of this town have been holding a festival to honor the return of these birds since the late 1700s. After spending the summer in Capistrano, the swallows leave around October 23 to fly south for their wintering grounds in and around Goya, Argentina. Around February 18, they leave Goya, and 7,500 miles and 30 days later they arrive back at Capistrano.

The longest migration of any bird is undertaken by the Arctic Tern, which flies from its breeding grounds in the Arctic to winter in the Antarctic, a round trip of 20,000 miles. The highest-flying migrating birds ever recorded were Bar-headed Geese at an altitude of 29,000 feet over the Himalayan Mountains.

“The swallow and the crane observe the changes of the seasons. They migrate from one country to another to find a climate suitable to their convenience and happiness, as the Lord designed they should. They are obedient to the laws which govern their life. But the beings formed in the image of God fail to honor him by obeying the laws of nature. By disregarding the laws that govern the human organism, they disqualify themselves for serving God.” Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students, 189, 190.

“God’s laws for nature are obeyed by nature. . . . So the birds fulfill God’s purpose as they make their long migrations from land to land, guided through trackless space by the hand of infinite power.

“Can it be that man, made in the image of God, endowed with reason and speech, shall alone be unappreciative of His gifts and disobedient to His laws? . . .

“God desires us to learn from nature the lesson of obedience. ‘Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; And the birds of the heavens, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee; And the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these, That the hand of Jehovah hath wrought?’ ‘With God is wisdom and might; He hath counsel and understanding.’ Job 12:7–9, 13, A.R.V.” Testimonies, vol. 8, 327, 328.

David Arbour writes from his home in DeQueen, Arkansas. He may be contacted by e-mail at: landmarks@stepstolife.org.