Birds are ridiculous.

Birds. Birds are what I have to talk about. 

This is an American Woodcock.
When I learned about this bird in class,
I was reduced to tears from hysterical laughter.
No one else laughed. It was awkward.

Firstly, let’s get something straight. I’ve never really liked birds all that much. I like watching people who are excited about birds, though…it’s amusing. They make “psh”-ing sounds and use words like “Lifer”. But now I’m taking an Ornithology class…that is “the study of birds”. Why? Because my advising committee said that I needed more “-ologies”…Yep. Now I’m in a class ALL about BIRDS....Feathered annoying devils.

When I first started at Emporia, I was offered an assistantship (I attempt to teach, they pay my tuition...good deal). That first semester I taught night classes, with the majors-biology lab section ending at 9:00PM. On the second week of teaching, I had a student stay after class; he had missed the first lab of the semester, so he was staying after to make it up (yes…at 9:00pm…good times).

I babbled about what we had done the previous week when he interrupted with “you’re religious?” I was semi-taken aback and floundered and stammered out something like “erm…I guess? I like Jesus?”…He then asked, “How does that work? Like, aren't sciences and religions supposed to not work together?”

“Uh...for me they work together fine.” He shrugged and we finished the lab in good time.

For a while I wondered why he asked. It’s not like I exude religionousness when crashing through the Scientific Method…And what an odd thing to say in general...no one since has asked me that. This student never returned to lab after that night (he tragically died the next semester--and with that comes a bunch of weird feelings like “maybe I should have emailed him more often to see why he wasn't coming to class?”)

Anyways, I’ve thought about that experience a lot – how I answered, how I was caught entirely off-guard, why he would ask that in the first place…Turns out, I was probably wearing my Dad’s St. Francis necklace. It has Francis with a deer and a tree and a bird. See how this connects to the opening paragraph? Bird.

I really love the world and I love learning about it. For me, science and faith aren't exactly opposites. They’re like…friends. I very much see God in what I am learning. Like I said: “For me they work together fine.” And I think it’s sad that people just think of the two things as polar opposites. You can either love Jesus or love Science – pick your side and defend it by shouting loudly on the internets!

The sciences ask questions about the natural world. Biology studies the living world. God made the natural world and God breathed life into the living world. For me, there is no separation between “science” and “faith”. I see God in every crazy thing I’m learning and it’s SO COOL!

Ruddy Duck

So, birds. That’s the main focus of my semester. Birds are crazy. Like, so….so…CRAZY. Like, mind-blowing ridiculously crazy! They are SO COOL…I just need to take a deep breath and count to ten.
1………2…………3…………4…5..6…..---SO AWESOME! BIRDS! Who would've thought?! (In the words of Lane: OH MY WORD!)

Bufflehead

 That’s where God is this semester. He’s covered in arsenic dust, sitting there inside the stuffed Bufflehead specimen. I just can’t look at these creatures and not be overjoyed with how amazing the world is. I’m like “seriously, God…a Ruddy Duck? How is that even a thing? That tail-bill combo is fantastic”.

American Bittern.
They have to hold there heads like this to
 see what's in front of them.
Ridiculous.

So, if I could go back in time…I wish I could have answered that student with; “have you ever SEEN a bird? They’re so BA. And so ridiculous. Go youtube the American Woodcock. As a scientist, I am excited to learn about these beasts; how they fly, how they eat, which species is which. And as a person of faith, I am blessed to be able to see these beasts as an intricate part of a bajillion-year old creation. They were envisioned by a Creator…He laid out this amazing world for us to study by using the sciences."

....let's just get a close-up of that face...
yep....still ridiculous. 

Now, for your enjoyment…here are some bird facts for you because birds be crazy, yo.

•  Birds often fly.
• Turkey gizzards can pulverize English walnuts, steel needles, and surgical lancets.
• Birds can navigate using magnetic fields, the stars and maybe even polarized light.
•  Birds have color vision…and they can see into part of the UV range…so, their plumages look waaay different to them, than how we see them.
• Many people think birds are the descendants of Theropods-- a group of dinosaurs that includes things like velociraptor and t-rex.
•   A lot of water birds have dark feathers because melanin is all like “yo, bacteria…just try to eat me! Just. Try.”
•   There are six known species of poisonous birds.
• Peregrine falcons dive out of the air – at 96-264mph. This fact comes with a quote: “arguably, the most direct measurements are those by a free-falling parachutist who accompanied his train falcons in dives from 12,000ft”. (Who does that?!)
• They have crazy bone-fusions and extra knobs and processes that make it so they don’t simply crumble when they exert all that flapping-force.
•   Look up how birds breathe. Craaaziness.
•   A resting hummingbird breathes 143 times a second.
•    American Goldfinches can maintain their body temperature at -70*C.
•   Some birds have languages. Some use tools. Some have cultures.
•  The light coming from a florescent light bulb and the pictures on a TV appear as constant streams of light to humans because we can’t see things that are faster than 60 hertz (cycles per second). Birds can see things at 100hertz, so our lights and TVs are seen by birds as a series of flashes.
•    Owl faces are asymmetrical. This, along with the dish-shaped face,  helps them hear mega-well.
•  Birds dream. Zebra finches practice new songs in their sleep.
•  Birds are way-cool.

(All these facts come from my textbook "Ornithology" by Gill)