Council Community Church

Pastor's Corner

HOW MUCH WOOD COULD A WOODPECKER PECK…?

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.” (Psalm 19:1-2)

And have you listened to the woodpeckers? They’ve been hammering on everything from old trees to electrical transformers: rat-a-tat-tatting in their hunt for a bug lunch. Well, the woodpecker is another clear example of God’s design. First of all, as you might expect, the woodpecker’s beak is of industrial-strength stuff, in order to withstand the heavy impacts it experiences. But those impacts are also enough to scramble the woodpecker’s brain. Very sad.

But wait! He has a special cartilage shock-absorber between his beak and his skull (wasn’t that lucky?). But what if his skull isn’t capable of handling those bone-jarring – and bone-breaking – blows? No worries: the woodpecker’s skull is the strongest in the world relative to his bodyweight. He sure was lucky to have developed that!

As you hear the rapid beat of his pecking, realize that in between every stroke he opens his eyes, focuses, aims and then closes his eyes again before the next strike occurs. This allows him to actually see his target area (rather essential) while still protecting his eyes. You see, it’s been calculated that if the woodpecker’s eyes were open at the instant of impact, his eyeballs would pop right of their sockets. Blind woodpeckers wouldn’t survive very well, so it sure was lucky they accidentally came up with this finely-tuned system, don’t you think?

Add to all of this the fact that the woodpecker’s feet and tail-feathers are specially designed to allow him to move any direction on a tree trunk at any time and have a position to work from (he tripods himself with his unique tail). Keep in mind that EVERY ONE of these features would have to be functioning together FROM THE BEGINNING in order for the woodpecker to thrive and survive (Do ya feel lucky?).

But the poor woodpecker is still left with the problem of how to get the insect/larvae out from deep inside the tree. Most bird tongues don’t go past the end of their beaks, so how will he ever manage? But wait! A woodpecker’s tongue can go as much as 10 inches past the end of his beak, so that it can go far down bug-tunnels. But once it gets there, the larvae doesn’t go willingly to its death, so the poor woodpecker still starves, even after all of this hard work, because he can’t get the bug out.

But wait! The end of the woodpecker’s tongue is equipped with little barbs to “spear” the larvae with. And in addition, his tongue produces a glue which sticks to the bugs, but not to his beak! Unfortunately, when the tongue is withdrawn to the mouth with the larvae stuck to it, the bird will choke itself to death because the tongue will be swallowed along with the bug. Poor woodpecker. But wait! The woodpecker then produces a solvent which dissolves the glue, allowing lunch to be swallowed with no bird mortality. What an outstanding stroke of good fortune, wouldn’t you say?

The woodpecker needs the heavy beak to peck the hole, but he needs the special feet and tail to allow him to work on the tree at all. Then the shock-absorber, heavy skull and micro-second eye timing must be in place or the impact kills him. But without the long tongue he can’t get to his food, and without the glue he can’t get his food to him. Then he has to have the solvent to keep from choking himself.

It is a specially designed system that could never have developed gradually and slowly by chance, because the bird would have perished without the entire package being in place from the start. The God of the Bible makes Himself evident to those who are willing to see. Are you willing?