Pacific Golden Plover

To me, the Pacific Golden Plover is one of the most amazing birds in all creation.  It lives in Alaska and Canada’s north pacific coast.  Yet sometimes it migrates all the way to Hawaii and back.  First of all, before its first migratory journey, how does it even know that Hawaii exists, let alone where to find it?! They’ve never seen a map, let alone would they even know how to read one.  To this day, scientists that have been studying this bird stand in wonder of this mystery.

A bit disturbing is the fact the females lay their eggs, and abandon them on the mainland!  It chooses to leave for Hawaii after the eggs are laid, knowing they will bear too much weight for her to make the journey.  By human standards, these are deadbeat parents. 

They know they need to eat a lot of food and gain a lot of weight to store enough consumable energy that will last the entire journey.  It’s an eighty-eight-hour flight, non-stop!  These birds cannot swim, and they have nowhere to land safely until they reach their destination.  If they eat just a little short of what they need, they won’t make it.  They will plop to the ocean and drown.  Likewise, if they eat just a little too much, they will gain too much weight, and their energy efficiency will be ruined.  Again, they will plop from exhaustion and drown. 

Like other birds, they migrate in the common “V” formation.  That is done to reduce wind resistance.  They know they need to take turns at leading the flock, so that everybody consumes the same amount of energy equally.  Otherwise, one of them will plop and drown.  If one dies, they all die, because they need everybody just to maintain the right wind resistance and rotation rate.  Who taught them these laws of aerodynamics?

Just one degree off-course will make them miss their destination.  Powerful gusts of wind often blow them way off-course, yet they manage to compensate.  Just like homing pigeons, they seem to have a natural GPS built into their brains.  A man-made GPS needs a programmer to enter the information.  Who programmed these birds long before computers or satellites ever existed?  I believe the most reasonable answer is God.  In the Bible, we read, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Romans 1:20 NIV). 

If you ask “What happens to those eggs they laid and abandoned back home?” don’t worry.  They hatch and fend for themselves.  As adults, they migrate to Hawaii, just like their parents before them, with nobody to teach them how it’s done.  Then again, how dare I say God is nobody?!


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