Tag Archives: Interesting Things

Creation Moment’s – Tool Users That Are Something To Crow About

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New Caledonian Crow (Corvus moneduloides) by Ian Montgomery

Genesis 4:22

“And Zillah, she also bare Tubal-cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.”

Many creatures have been found that use sticks, leaves and other items as tools. Chimpanzee parents teach their youngsters to poke sticks in termite holes to get termites. However, no animal has shown an instinctive tendency to make and use tools, until now.

Caledonian crows are among the known tool-users. A pair of captive New Caledonian crows were having trouble incubating their four eggs. So researchers decided to incubate and raise the young crows themselves. Upon hatching, the young crows were separated into two pairs. One pair received lessons on how to use twigs to poke food out of slots. The other pair received no lessons, nor were they allowed to see their siblings using tools. When they were given sticks and leaves, they spontaneously began using the twigs to poke food out of a slot. One of them also tore a leaf into a food poker. After evaluating all the behavioral data, researchers concluded that while crows have a natural tendency to make and use tools, they also learn how to make improved tools from their elders.

Tool making is not what separates man from animals, although we can make tools far superior to those made by animals. The Bible tells us that the earliest man was made in the image of God and that the earliest generations of man were already making iron tools.

Prayer: Father, thank You for making me for a relationship with You and making a relationship possible through Christ. Amen.

Author: Paul A. Bartz

Ref: Science News, 1/15/05, p. 38, S. Milius, “Crow Tools.” Image: New Caledonian crow (PD)

© 2020 Creation Moments. (Used with permission)

Lee’s Addition:

We have had several previous articles about the tool usage of birds:

Birds of the Bible – Uniquely Created Tools

Interesting Things – Fleas, Birds and Tools

The Best Toolmakers in the World by Emma Foster

The Crow and the Screwdriver – by Emma Foster

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Hope for Hard Times

 

Bird Barks And Lizard Growls – Creation Moments

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Numbers 22:30

“So the donkey said to Balaam, ‘Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden, ever since I became yours, to this day? Was I ever disposed to do this to you?’ And he said, ‘No.’”

Have you ever noticed that we can usually sense whether an animal is hostile or friendly, simply by its sound? Did you ever wonder about the universal features that allow for important basic information to be shared between animals and humans?

None of us ever had to be taught that a dog, growling deeply and showing its teeth, was trying to threaten us. We’re all familiar with the high-pitched yips that same dog makes to welcome its owner home. Research shows that the motivations expressed by high-pitched and low-pitched sounds are universal among most creatures.

Researchers say that almost all animals bark (the high-pitched sounds) or growl (the low-pitched sounds). They were surprised to learn that animals don’t simply make arbitrary noises. Sound has meaning. Even the higher-pitched voice of birds has a barking mode that can be seen on a graph and heard when a slowed-down recording is played. Animals make lower, harsher sounds when they’re being aggressive. This is the growl. When friendly, an animal makes higher-pitched sounds. The bark seems to mean that an animal is neither hostile nor friendly, simply curious. Human speech follows the same general pattern.

These universal features of communication reflect the work of our Creator who intended for many different kinds of creatures to coexist. He gave us all a universal method for understanding important basic messages like fear, aggression and joy.

Prayer: I thank You, Lord, for the joy that animals add to our lives. I also thank You that You have made us able to share some basic but important features of communication. However, help me to value, most highly, Your communication to me in Your Holy Word. Amen.

REF.: Bennett, Dawn D. 1985. Making sense of animal sounds. Science Ne   Photo: Pembroke Corgi – pixabay.com (PD)

Used with permission. Creation Moments ©2019

Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger niger), Northern subspecies, adult in breeding plumage calling and a pair of well camouflaged downy chicks at Nickerson Beach Park on Long Island, New York.

Wonder if this Skimmer is growling or barking?

More Creation Moments articles:

Interesting Things

What is the Gospel?

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Clark’s Nuthatch’s Memory – Creation Moments

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Job 38:41

“Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat.”

 The shy bird called Clark’s nutcracker collects food during the growing season and stores it for the cold winter months. In one year, a bird will store between 22,000 and 33,000 seeds in as many as 2,500 locations, which can be more than ten miles apart. But does the little bird remember where he put all those seeds?

Biologists tracked the activity of Clark’s nutcrackers in the San Francisco Peaks in northern Arizona. A small army of researchers tracked the birds’ seed gathering and storing activities. One of the first things they discovered was that the birds quickly figured out that they were being observed. Some refused to store food when researchers were watching them. Others faked storing seeds when they were watched. Back in the lab, researchers studied the storing activity of Eurasian nutcrackers. After the birds stored seeds in a large sand floor, the birds were removed. Then the seeds they stored were dug up. When the birds were allowed to return, they quickly discovered that their seeds had been stolen, so they refused to store any more seeds. In the end, researchers concluded that the nutcrackers recover as many as two-thirds of their stored seeds within 13 months.

Clark's Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) by Ian

Clark’s Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana) by Ian

The remarkable memory of these little birds is their gift from God that enables them to be fed all year around.

Prayer: Father, I thank You because You are gracious and generous, not just to the birds, but also to me. Amen.

Ref: Science News, 2/14: 2004, pp. 103-105, Susan Milius, “Where’d I Put That?” Photo: Clark’s nutcracker PD

Copyright © 2019 Creation Moments, Inc. PO Box 839, Foley, MN 56329 800-422-4253  www.creationmoments.com

What an interesting memory. How is your memory doing? Is it as good as these Nutcrackers?

See More From:

Interesting Things

Did Birds’ Lungs Evolve? – Creation Moments

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Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus) ©Lucas Texas

Job 39:26-27

“Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south? Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high?”

I remember buying a foot pump to inflate the tires on my first car. My choice was between two pumps. On the cheaper model, the foot operated a piston entering a cylinder in which the air would be compressed and forced through a tube into the tire. When the foot was lifted, valves prevented air getting back into the cylinder from the tire, and, instead, dragged air in from the outside. Each depression of the foot repeated this operation. In a sense, the lungs of mammals and reptiles would resemble two such pumps side by side.

The second model featured two pistons and cylinders angled in opposite directions. Pressing with the foot began the first stage of tire compression as before, but on releasing the foot, the second cylinder pushed air into the tire while the first refilled with external air. The next foot depression allowed cylinder 2 to refill while cylinder 1 pumped. Thus, there was air pumped into the tire on both depression and release of the foot. The two cylinders worked in tandem, in opposite directions. This second continuous pump is like the two lungs in a bird.

Birds Lungs ©Creation Moments PD

Even some well-known evolutionary scientists have pointed out how impossible it would be for one mechanism to evolve into the other because the transitional form would not be able to process air for breathing at all, and would suffocate. So bird lungs could not have evolved from dinosaurs, but, instead, are designed by God for exactly their purpose.

 Prayer: Father, when we think about birds, as with all other animals, we acknowledge that You have made them fit for purpose, to be able to live and work the way that You have designed them to do. Amen.

Ref: Quick, D.E and Ruben, J.A., Cardio-Pulmonary Anatomy in Theropod Dinosaurs: Implications From Extant Archosaurs, JOURNAL OF MORPHOLOGY 270:1232–1246 (2009), pp. 1232-1246.  Image: Public Domain.

Source: Did Birds’ Lungs Evolve?

See Interesting Things for more articles like this.

Birds of the Bible – Birds of the What??

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Wood Stork flying over Lake Morton by Lee 2009

Wood Stork flying over Lake Morton by Lee 2009

In my last post, Birds of the Bible – Birds of the Air Updated, I mentioned that I was going to search my many versions of the Bible. WELL!! I may just have bit off more than I can chew or have more material for articles than I have years left on this earth. :0)

So far in my searching through the two sources that I am using, [e-Sword and Bible Gateway] I have been busy for the last several days, just trying to find verses with “Birds of the“[in English versions]. Have I ever been surprised! There have been translations with “0” (Zero) verses up to several with over 50 verses.

Mallards flying off by Ian

Mallards flying off by Ian

Before you get too upset with me using so many versions, let me place a disclaimer here. I believe God inspired the original manuscripts, and that they have been preserved through diligent copying of those. He promised: “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Matthew 5:18, KJV. I use the KJV, but also use a few other Bibles that I believe are very close to those original scripts. I do use other versions occasionally, like this, to find verses about the birds. Some versions today are questionable as to the way it was translated.

Thousands of Snow Geese flying ©Hager Mannwr-moreno

Along with all the “Birds of the”; sky, heavens, heaven, trees, air, mountains, waste land, sky lodge, and hills, some versions use fowl and fowls. My next search is of the fowls, so the verses can be matched.

What are they doing? Why are they there? What lessons can we learn from them, etc.? That is where the Birds of the What?? is heading. Stay turned.

For a starter, almost all of the versions list Genesis 1:26. They all mention God creating man, and then giving them rule over the “birds of the …”

KJV
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
NASB
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
NKJV
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
AMP
Then God said, “Let Us (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) make man in Our image, according to Our likeness [not physical, but a spiritual personality and moral likeness]; and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, and over the entire earth, and over everything that creeps and crawls on the earth.”

    Vermilion-Flycatcher-male-flying ©Brent Paull

Why Do We Get New Species? – Creation Moments

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Mixed Flock of birds flying in a V Formation- Put together- ©Creative Commons

Mixed Flock of birds flying in a V Formation- Put together- ©Creative Commons

WHY DO WE GET NEW SPECIES?

“And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:24-25

We know that Noah did not have to fit two of every species of animal on the Ark. The Ark sheltered two of every kind of land and flying vertebrate, not two of every species. For example, modern species like lions and tigers would have developed from the pair from the Image: Wild Big Catscat family that were on the Ark. Over time, different species of cats have developed from this pair.

It is easy to see how this happened. Environmental conditions favor certain genes over others, so that these features are selected in the offspring. A simplistic example is that creatures with longer hair or fur have developed in colder areas of the world. This has involved no new genetic information; there has simply been selection from existing genetic information.

But why did God make this speciation possible? God knew the different conditions that would arise in different parts of the world. Because Scripture shows us that God actively sustains life, it is possible that He included this ability to diversify in creatures in order to help their offspring to survive in radically different conditions – especially the vastly changed conditions in the aftermath of the Flood.

Prayer:
Thank You, Lord, because we read that You give the beasts their food. You own the cattle on a thousand hills, and You look after Your creation with wisdom. Amen.

Notes:
Ref: Lightner, J.K. (2016), Toward a Creationary View of Why Speciation Occurs, Journal of Creation 30(1):70–75, April 2016. Image: Adobe Stock Photo, licensed to author.

When the new updates come out from the I.O.C. of the list of world birds, this helps explain why they find “new species.” Also, as the subspecies develop, many time they have been raised to full species status also. Our Lord, their Creator, knew how to protect his created critters.

©Creation Moments 2018 Used with Permission

More articles from Creation Moments

Designed For Flight – Creation Moments YouTube

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Cactus Wren (Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus) by Lee

Cactus Wren (Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus) by Lee

“Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.” (Proverbs 23:5 KJV)

“Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.” (Isaiah 40:28 KJV)

Mute Swan (Cygnus olor)II at Bok Tower By Dan'sPix

Mute Swan (Cygnus olor)II at Bok Tower By Dan’sPix

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Interesting Things

Creation Moments

Wordless Toucan

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Monkeying With Genetics and A False Tale of a Tail

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“What is man, that thou shouldest magnify him? and that thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?” (Job 7:17)

You can see the written copy of this article here – CLICK.

“And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” (John 5:38-40 KJV)

Here is another Creation Moments Minute about a Baby With A Tail.

You can see this written copy here – CLICK

“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. And their word will eat as doth a canker:” (2 Timothy 2:15-17a KJV)

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What will you do with Jesus?

THE UMBRELLA BIRD from Creation Moments

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Black Heron (Egretta ardesiaca) ©WikiC

Black Heron (Egretta ardesiaca) ©WikiC

THE UMBRELLA BIRD from Creation Moments – Re-post

“Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.” (1 Thessalonians 5:5)

The best fishermen not only know where the fish are biting, but exactly what type of bait or lure is needed to catch the big ones. That’s why I say that the best fisherman of all is not a man but a bird.

The black heron knows exactly where and when the fish are biting. He goes fishing for his food by wading into shallow lakes and ponds. But there’s a problem. Fish avoid the water’s surface to avoid the bright rays of the sun. Even if a fish does come close to the surface, the black heron is unable to see it because he is blinded by the sun’s reflection.

But like I said, this bird is a master fisherman. What he does is shape his wings into a large black umbrella. He then crouches down until his wings are almost touching the water, effectively turning daylight into darkness, and attracting fish to the shade. Under cover of his umbrella, the black heron pokes his head into the water and comes out with a squirming fish in his beak.

This kind of fishing is known as canopy feeding. How did the black heron learn to fish like this? Creationists know, but evolutionists have no reasonable answer. They only have a term. Yes, evolutionists are good at coming up with terms like “canopy feeding”, but when it comes to explaining how such a thing originated in the first place, they are still very much in the dark.

Prayer:
Heavenly Father, I ask You to make me a good fisherman – not of fish but of men. Use me to share the gospel so that my friends and family will turn to You for salvation. Amen.
Notes:
http://thewebsiteofeverything.com/animals/birds/Ciconiiformes/Ardeidae/Egretta-ardesiaca. Photo: Black heron comes out of its feathered canopy after catching a fish. Courtesy of Steve Garvie. (CC-BY-SA 2.0 GENERIC)

©Creation Moments 2015

Black Heron (Egretta ardesiaca) ©WikiC

Black Heron (Egretta ardesiaca) ©WikiC

Lee’s Addition:

What an amazing behavior that the Lord gave these Black Herons! Just as the Lord promised the Ravens, this verse is also true for the Black Herons:

Who provides food for the raven (or Black Herons), When its young ones cry to God, And wander about for lack of food? (Job 38:41 NKJV)

P.S.

Sorry I have not been as quick to answer your comments this last week, but we have had company. My sister and her husband, from the Denver area, are with us and are staying in the room that has my computer. :) We had the memorial service this last weekend for my other sister who went on to Glory several months ago. See:

No Post Today – But 20/20 Vision

Hope to be back to a more normal schedule soon. Yet, I wish they could stay longer. Heaven will be great when we can visit eternally with our whole Spiritual Family, which includes many of you, but most of all with our Savior, Eternal Brother, God the Father.

Creation Moments Umbrella Bird

Ardeidae – Herons, Bitterns Family

Black Heron – Wikipedia

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Crow Versus Eagle, Free Ride Instead

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Crow on Eagles Back ©©

Crow on Eagles Back ©©

Here is an article worth looking at:

Crow Tries to Fight Eagle, Gets Free Ride Instead

‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. (Exodus 19:4 NKJV)

Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For riches certainly make themselves wings; They fly away like an eagle toward heaven. (Proverbs 23:5 NKJV)

But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31 NKJV)

Our pursuers were swifter Than the eagles of the heavens. They pursued us on the mountains… (Lamentations 4:19a NKJV)

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More from Focusing On Wildlife

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Arizona-Senora Desert Museum – Vacation

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Desert Mus-Tucson by Lee

“He found him in a desert land And in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye. (Deuteronomy 32:10 NKJV)

The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them, And the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose; It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice, Even with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, The excellence of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, The excellency of our God.
(Isaiah 35:1-2a NKJV)

We spent three days in Tucson, Arizona and were able to see the Arizona-Senora Desert Museum. The plants are so different from what we see normally, though we see a few cactus now and then. There were plenty of neat plants to see and of course birds to watch.

Cactus Flower - Arizona Living Desert Museum by Lee

Cactus Flower – Arizona Living Desert Museum by Lee

Today you will get to see some of the plants and scenery at the desert museum. As mentioned before, the Lord has made so much variety in this world, it is amazing. Just enjoy some photos of this very interesting place.

Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, ‘HE GAVE THEM BREAD FROM HEAVEN TO EAT.'” Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
(John 6:31-33 NKJV)

What a delightful place! We really enjoyed seeing  the beautiful flowers and weird plants that are beautiful in their own right. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

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Birds at the Mississippi Welcome Center

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Mississippi Welcome Ctr (2)

Birds at the Mississippi Welcome Center were a welcome sight. While on our most recent vacation, we saw these trees with birds carved on the end of each limb.

Welcome Center at Moss Point, Mississippi

Welcome Center at Moss Point, Mississippi

The center is at Moss Point, MS (the eastern center on I-10 headed west) and were carved by Martin Miller with a chain saw. Mr. Miller uses trees that were destroyed or damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

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Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? (Mat 6:26)

Mr. Miller’s bird creations are copied from fantastic creations of their Creator.

Martin Miller

Heron Bird Carvings

Wordless Birds

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