Lee's Birdwatching Adventures Plus

Interesting Things – Cuckoo Deceit

November 29, 2009 by Lee

SmileyCentral.com

Deceit Is Cuckoo

Listen to this from Creation Moment

Bread gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be filled with gravel. Proverbs 20:17

Fan-tailed Cuckoo (Cacomantis flabelliformis) by Ian

You may be aware that the common cuckoo does not feed or raise its own young. Instead, it lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. The adoptive parents feed and raise the young cuckoo as their own until the cuckoo gets larger than the foster parents and flies away without so much as a “thank you.”

One common adoptive parent for the young cuckoos is the reed warbler, whose behavior pattern is quite different from the cuckoos. For example, reed warbler parents recognize hungry baby birds by their persistent calling. Cuckoos typically lay but one egg in an adoptive nest. Once this egg hatches, the young cuckoo throws the reed warbler eggs out of the nest. So how does one little baby cuckoo manage to convince the parent reed warbler that it is half a dozen reed warbler babies to be fed? Researchers have finally learned the amazing answer to that question. They say that the baby cuckoo fools its adoptive parents by sounding like as many as eight baby reed warblers. The act is so convincing that it gets all the food it wants.

Clamorous Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus stentoreus) by Nikhil

Who teaches the baby cuckoos this trick? Certainly not the mother cuckoo who, incidentally, misses out on all the fulfillment of family life. The cuckoo reminds us that deceit robs us of good experiences in our lives. That ’s why it is comforting when our perfect God of truth tells us that He never changes.

Prayer: Forgive me, dear Father, for any deceit in my life, and help me to live a life of truth and honesty. InJ esus’ Name. Amen.

References: L.H., Cuckoos beg doggedly to trick hosts, Science News, v.155, p.158, March 6, 1999
Copyright © 2009 Creation Moments, Inc., PO Box 839, Foley, MN 56329, www.creationmoments.com.

To learn more about the Cuckoo – Click Here

Posted in Birds, Interesting Things | Tagged Bird Watching, Birds, Birdwatching, Creation Moments, Cuckoo, Interesting Things | Leave a Comment »

When I Consider! – Couch’s Spadefoot Toad

November 28, 2009 by Lee

When I Consider!

Evidence From Biology – January 6

The Couch’s spadefoot toad of the Sonoran Desert is an example of how God takes care of creatures under extreme conditions. This toad lies dormant in the hot desert eleven out of twelve months each year. It has built-in sensors that tell it when a violent desert rainstorm occurs. The toad can detect vibrations of pounding rain miles away. It somehow knows to emerge from the sand when it rains so that the male toads can call for females as soon as pools of water form. Shortly afterwards the egg-laying is completed and the toads return to the sand, safe from the heat of the burning daytime sun. Most of the time the desert pools rapidly dry up, killing the eggs. Only under ideal conditions will some of the eggs hatch nine days later. The young toads have at most a few weeks to eat enough food to survive before burying themselves in the sand for the next eleven months while awaiting the another rainstorm.

Couch's Spadefoot Toad

Such survival instincts and mechanisms were probably not required before the Fall, when the world was designed as a paradise. In the current world, with its severe climates, such instincts and abilities seem to have been specifically designed for animals such as the spadefoot toad. How could this ability to adjust to such harsh weather conditions have evolved? Unless all of the abilities, instincts, and timing of the toads’ reproductive cycle were in place, the toads could never have survived the first severe season.

The wild animals honor me…because I provide water in the desert and streams in the wasteland… (Isaiah 43:20)

From A Closer Look at the Evidence, by the Kleiss’

(Typed by Phyllis)

From Wikipedia:
The Couch’s Spadefoot Toad, (Scaphiopus couchii) is a species of North American spadefoot toad native to the southwestern United States and the Baja region of Mexico. The epithet couchii is in honor of American naturalist Darius Nash Couch, who collected the first specimen while on a personal expedition to northern Mexico to collect plant, mineral and animal specimens for the Smithsonian Institution.[1]

These toads can be found throughout the Sonoran Desert, including Arizona. How can you tell the species? True toads have horizontal pupils but the spadefoots have vertical pupils (like cats). Look at the sole of a hind foot. There you’ll find the hard, dark “spade” that gives a spadefoot its name. There are only two spadefoot species in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and California. If the space is sickleshaped, it’s Couch’s spadefoot, Scaphiopus couchi. If the spade is rounded, it’s the western spadefoot, Scaphiopus hammondii(called the southern spadefoot, Scaphiopus multiplicatus, in some field guides).

Spadefoot Foot by Thomas Eimermacher

Incidentally, the spades really are digging tools–spadefoots use them to burrow backward into the soil.

Once you’ve finished checking the animal, gently put it down where you caught it–it has important things to do–then wash your hands thoroughly in the water. Amphibian skin secretions can be quite toxic; they probably won’t affect your hands, but you won’t want to get them in your eyes, nose, or mouth.

Spadefoots live for the monsoon. They spend the rest of the year underground awaiting their wake-up call: the drumming of raindrops on the soil during a summer thunderstorm. As soon as the males dig out they go looking for rain pools, and when they find them they broadcast the news loudly as they can. The chorus draws silent female spadefoots from far and wide.

Mating is an urgent matter for spadefoots. Their tadpoles must hatch, grow, and change into toadlets before the pool evaporates in the summer sun. That’s why they do most of their mating the first night the pool forms. Couch’s spadefoot toadlets sometimes leave the puddle only nine days after the eggs are laid! Western spadefoots take longer–at least three weeks.

The warmth of the water speeds up the tadpoles’ growth. Meanwhile they devour everything even remotely edible. They scrape algae off rocks. They filter microorganisms from the water as they pump it over their gills. They gather in wriggling masses, stir up the muck on the bottom of the pond, and filter that. And unlike most tadpoles, which are exclusively herbivores and filter-feeders, spadefoot tadpoles are omnivores. They also eat dead insects and tadpoles, and” more.

When I Consider! – Snowshoe Rabbit

November 28, 2009 by Lee

When I Consider!

Evidence From Biology – January 2

Although the original world was created perfect and without death, our fallen world requires creatures to adapt to difficult situations in order to survive. Even in the current world full of death and competition, the smallest of creatures exhibit amazing capabilities for survival in harsh environments. The female snowshoe rabbit is one such creature. During extreme drought or harsh winters, the stress of finding food triggers a chemical process in the pregnant female that stops and embryo’s growth. Her body then responds to this condition of physical weakness with a process called resorption. In this process, the mother completely reabsorbs the growing embryo. This mechanism allows the rabbit to survive by replenishing her own strength. She can later become pregnant during more favorable conditions.

Snowshoe Hare or Rabbit

The number of chemical and physical changes required for a rabbit to reverse a pregnancy is mind-boggling. There is no scientific evidence which explains how this remarkable resorption process could have evolved. The creativity of God to have provided for the common rabbit in this way is truly amazing!

The LORD is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion. Psalm 116:5

From A Closer Look at the Evidence, by the Kleiss’

(Typed by Phyllis)

Posted in Biology, Plus, When I Consider! | Tagged A Closer Look at the Evidence, Biology, Christian, Creation, Plus, Richard and Tina Kleiss, Snowshoe Rabbit | Leave a Comment »

Ian’s Bird of the Week – Rufous-banded Honeyeater

November 26, 2009 by Lee

Rufous-banded Honeyeater (Conopophila albogularis) by Ian

Here’s a small tropical Honeyeater that we encountered frequently in the Top End of the Northern Territory in September: the Rufous-banded. It’s appeal is subtle rather than spectacular, but I think it looks rather smart with its grey head, white-throat, rufous breast band and brown and yellow wings and tail.

Rufous-banded Honeyeater (Conopophila albogularis) by Ian

It has a restricted range, being confined to the Top End of the Northern Territory and the northern half of Cape York in Queensland. It is rather similar to its close relative the Rufous-throated Honeyeater, which, in addition to the different throat colour of adult, lacks the rufous band and has a brownish head. The difference in head colour is diagnostic, as juveniles of the Rufous-banded and Rufous-throated lack the rufous band and throat respectively. Rufous would seem to be important in signalling sexual maturity, though the sexes are identical. The ranges of the two species overlap, with the Rufous-throated extending farther south in the tropics to include the Kimberley in Western Australia, the centre of the Northern Territory and Northern Queensland as far south as Townsville.

I’m in Mission Beach for the annual Pied Imperial Pigeon count http://www.birdsaustralianq.org/projects.htm and the BANQ Christmas get-together en route to Cape York to help in a survey in Mungkan Kandju national park between Coen and Arthur River. The survey will take several days and I plan to stay on for a few extra days to chase a few Cape York specialties.

Best wishes,
Ian
–
Ian Montgomery, Birdway Pty Ltd,
454 Forestry Road, Bluewater, Qld 4818
Phone: +61-7 4751 3115 Mobile +61-411 602 737
Preferred Email: ian@birdway.com.au
Website: http://birdway.com.au

Lee’s Addition:

Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones. (Proverbs 16:24 KJV)

The Rufous-banded Honeyeater is in the Passeriformes order and the Meliphagidae – Honeyeaters Family. Ian has great photos for 59 members of the Meliphagidae family.

“The honeyeaters are a large and diverse family of small to medium sized birds most common in Australia and New Guinea, but also found in New Zealand, the Pacific islands as far east as Hawaii, and the islands to the north and west of New Guinea known as Wallacea. Bali, on the other side of the Wallace Line, has a single species.

Honeyeaters and the closely related Australian chats make up the family Meliphagidae. In total there are 182 species in 42 genera, roughly half of them native to Australia, many of the remainder occupying New Guinea. Like their closest relatives, the Maluridae (Australian wrens), Pardalotidae (pardalotes and thornbills), and Petroicidae (Australian robins), they originated as part of the great corvid radiation in Australia-New Guinea (which were joined in a single landmass until quite recent geological times).” From “Honeyeaters” by AvianWeb

Interesting Links about this Family:
HONEYEATERS Meliphagidae by Bird Families of the World
Honeyeaters by AvianWeb.com

Posted in Bird of the Week, Birds | Tagged Australia, Bird of the Week, Bird Watching, Birds, Birdwatching, Honeyeaters, Ian Montgomery | Leave a Comment »

Birds of the Bible – Fatted Fowl

November 26, 2009 by Lee

Ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and an hundred sheep, beside harts, and roebucks, and fallowdeer, and fatted fowl. (1 Kings 4:23 KJV)

Chukar Partridge (Alectoris chukar) by Ian

While doing a search with my e-Sword Bible program, I came across I Kings 4:23. It is in the midst of the daily provisions needed by Solomon for one day. I had not noticed the “fatted fowl” before and since today is Thanksgiving, it caught my interest. According to what I wrote yesterday about the Thanksgiving Turkey, the Wild Turkey, Ocellated Turkey, and domesticated turkey are from the New World. If Solomon had lived here, I might think that he was eating “turkey” or some fatted goose, duck, or chicken. However, Solomon lived in Israel. So, what was the “fatted fowl”?

According to Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries: Fatted = H75 – aw-bas’ – A primitive root; to fodder: – fatted, stalled. Fowl = H1257 – bar-boor’ -By reduplication from H1250; a fowl (as fattened on grain) – fowl. So the fatted fowl was possibly fed grain as was the fatted calf. Here are some of the other translations for the “fatted calf”, fat fowls, geese, poultry, fattened birds, fattened fowl, fatted fowl, and fatted beast of the stalls.

Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary had this comment. “Solomon’s provision for one day — not for the king’s table only, but for all connected with the court, including, besides the royal establishment, those of his royal consorts, his principal officers, his bodyguards, his foreign visitors, etc. The quantity of fine floor used is estimated at two hundred forty bushels; that of meal or common flour at four hundred eighty. The number of cattle required for consumption, besides poultry and several kinds of game (which were abundant on the mountains) did not exceed in proportion what is needed in other courts of the East.”

Red Junglefowl (Gallus gallus) by NikhilDevasar

John Gill’s commentary said, “and fatted fowl; such as we call capons (a); some Jewish writers (b), because of the likeness of sound in the word here used, take them to be Barbary fowls, or such as were brought from that country: there is a sort of birds called βαρβαροι, which were without a voice, that neither heard men, nor knew their voice (c).

So what was the fatted fowl? It is hard to be exact, but, Scriptures mentions the Quail, Chicken, Hen, and Partridge kinds as being “clean” and thereby they could be eaten. These have also been known to be fattened up. The Barbary fowl according to Wikipedia and others is a Barbary Partridge which looks very much like our Chukar here in North America. The partridge family brings us back to the Turkey, which is in that family. One thing we know for certain. God created the fowls (birds) and we are permitted to eat some of them. (Genesis 1:20 and Genesis 9:2,3).

Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God. (2 Corinthians 9:11 KJV)

We hope you have a very happy Thanksgiving Day and that you spend time thanking God for all His blessings.

Barbary Partridge video by Josep del Hoyo

Posted in Birds of the Bible, Thanksgiving | Tagged Bird Watching, Birds, Birds of the Bible, Birdwatching, Christian, Fatted Fowl, Happy Thanksgiving | Leave a Comment »

Thanksgiving Turkey

November 25, 2009 by Lee

Tomorrow, many of us here in the United States will be eating turkey on Thanksgiving Day. Luckily, many turkeys will survive our holiday and continue to roam around. Here locally in Polk County, Florida, I see a “rafter” of turkeys (name for a group of turkeys – incorrectly called a “gobble” or “flock”) from time to time. Near Bartow I have seen them many times in rafters up to 11 turkeys. Near Circle B Bar Reserve, I have seen other groups up to 8 turkeys.

Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) by Daves BirdingPix

The domestic turkey is a descendant of the Wild Turkey and features prominently in the menu of the Canadian and U.S. holidays of Thanksgiving and that of Christmas in many countries.

The Turkey is in the Galliformes Order and in the Phasianidae (Pheasants, Fowl & Allies) Family. There are two turkeys – Wild Turkey – Meleagris gallopavo and the Ocellated Turkey – Meleagris ocellata. The Wild is native to North American forrests and the Ocellated is native to the Yucatan Peninsula forrests. They are relatives of the Grouse family. Both Turkeys have a “distinctive fleshy wattle that hangs from the underside of the beak and a fleshy protuberance (flap of skin) that hangs from the top of its beak called a snood.” Turkeys are the heaviest member of the Galliformes order. The females are smaller and duller than the males. The male weighs from 11-24 lbs (5-11 kg) [record=38lbs] and measures 39-49 in (100-125 cm). They also have from 20,000-30,000 feathers.

Ocellated Turkey (Meleagris ocellata) ©USFWS

Congressional Proclamations from CreationWiki.
“The United States Congress set December 18, 1777, as a day of thanksgiving on which the American people “may express the grateful feelings of their hearts and consecrate themselves to the service of their divine benefactor” and on which they might “join the penitent confession of their manifold sins . . . that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of remembrance.” Congress also recommends that Americans petition God “to prosper the means of religion for the promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.’”[1]
Congress set November 28, 1782, as a day of thanksgiving on which Americans were “to testify their gratitude to God for his goodness, by a cheerful obedience to his laws, and by promoting, each in his station, and by his influence, the practice of true and undefiled religion, which is the great foundation of public prosperity and national happiness.”

Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; (Ephesians 5:20 KJV)

See:
WhatBird’s Wild Turkey
Wikipedia’s Wild Turkey and Ocellated Turkey
Video of an Ocellated Turkey and a Wild Turkey displaying on Internet Bird Collection

Posted in Thanksgiving | Tagged Birds, Birdwatching, Christian, Christianity, Thanksgiving, Turkey | Leave a Comment »

Birds of the Bible – Cuckoo II

November 19, 2009 by Lee

Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus) Neal Addy Gallery

And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind,
(Leviticus 11:16 KJV) and (Deuteronomy 14:15)

Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) by Nikhil

The verses above are interesting because the cuckow (cuckoo) is taken from the Hebrew word, ” שחף or shachaph” (H7828), and is only used in those two verses. Some translate it as “cuckow” (KJV, Webster), “cuckoo” (YLT), “seamew or sea-mew” (ASV, JPS, RV), “sea-hawk” (BBE), and the rest “sea-gull or sea gull” (Darby, ESV, GW, MKJV, NASB, NKJV). From the Jewish Encyclopedia about the Cuckoo, “The A. V. rendering of (shaḥaf) in Lev. xi. 16 and Deut. xiv. 15. In both places it occurs in the list of unclean birds. This identification, however, is only a conjecture, and there is no certain tradition to support it. The Targum transcribes the Hebrew word. The Septuagint gives λάρος (“sea-gull”). The R. V. rendering is “seamew,” which is accepted by Gesenius, Bertholet, and Driver in their commentaries, and by Baentsch and Lewyson (“Zoologie des Talmuds,” p. 182). The cuckoo, however, is found in Palestine, where it passes the summer. Two varieties are met with—the common and the spotted cuckoo.”

Asian Emerald Cuckoo (Chrysococcyx maculatus) by Nikhil

Whether it is in the cuckoo or the gull family, it is not clear. What is clear is that it was not to be eaten. For this article, I am going to concentrate on the Cuculidae Family which includes the Cuckoo, Ani, Roadrunner, Coucal, Coua, Malkoha, Koel, Drongo-Cuckoo, and Hawk-Cuckoo. All of these are in the Cuculiformes Order and all were created by the Lord.

“The Cuckoos are medium to large birds some with a long tail; species range in lenght from 6.6-28 in. (16-70 cm). The bill of all species is basically the same, varying only in size: fairly short, strong or stout, and slightly decurved”. (Complete Birds of the World, National Geographical) They are generally medium sized slender birds. The cuckoos feed on insects, insect larvae and a variety of other animals, as well as fruit. Many species are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other species, but the majority of species raise their own young.

Zygodactyl arrangement of toes - Wikipedia

“One of the most important distinguishing features of the family are the feet, which are zygodactyl, meaning that the two inner toes pointed forward and the two outer backward. There are two basic body forms, arboreal species (like the Common Cuckoo) which are slender and have short tarsi, and terrestrial species (like the roadrunners) which are more heavy set and have long tarsi. Almost all species have long tails which are used for steering in terrestrial species and as a rudder during flight in the arboreal species. The wing shape also varies with lifestyle, with the more migratory species like the Black-billed Cuckoo possessing long narrow wings capable of strong direct flight, and the more terrestrial and sedentary cuckoos like the coucals and malkohas having shorter rounded wings and a more laboured gliding flight.”

Below are photos of some of the birds in the Cuculidae Family in IOC 2009 order.