Written by: Karl Schmidt
Luke 12:22-25 says, “Then Jesus said to his disciples; ‘therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the Ravens: they do not sow or reap, they have no storerooms or barns, yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?’” We have many occasions in life to worry. What career path to take, who to be friends with, who to date, who to marry, etc., the list is never ending. Years ago, I had finished my bachelor’s degree and student teaching and was looking for a job. After a whole summer of interviews, I went back home to my parents’ house, with no job and a wife and baby. I had a great opportunity to worry. A month into the school year I was called for an interview, as a long-term sub, and finally got a job teaching history at Rushford Central School (Cuba-Rushford Central School) where I stayed for 30 years. I think all of us can look back at our lives and see how God sustained us and by doing so taught us not to worry.Besides my love for teaching, I’ve always had a love for birdwatching. I’ve been fascinated about the variety of ways birds find things to eat and what they eat: from a Belted Kingfisher or an Osprey diving from a great height into the lake to catch a fish, to Ruby Throated Hummingbirds drinking nectar from my bee balm flowers (they also eat a lot of spiders), or to Vultures that eat dead animals (they have special enzymes in their gut that can break down the most disgusting rotted meat that would probably kill us). Last summer I watched a little American Redstart, a bird in the Warbler family, like a miniature fighter pilot chase a moth, finally grabbing it with its beak and after struggling with it a little bit, swallowing it down. Once while out for a walk, I watched an enterprising Gray Catbird in front of a beehive picking off bees as they flew out. For those of you who visit Florida, you might know of the Anhinga, a bird that chases fish underwater and spears them with its beak; or the various species of herons that wait patiently to grab a fish in the shallows. Closer to home, while canoeing by a rocky island in the Adirondacks (Canada Island, Lake Lila), I watched a baby Spotted Sandpiper struggling with a dragonfly it had caught by the tail — perhaps the first meal of its life. Winter can be a particularly hard time for birds to find food. But again, God cares for His creation. Cedar Waxwings, Robins, Chickadees, and Bluebirds are sustained throughout the cold winter by eating berries left over from the Fall and the tops of Sumacs. We’ve all seen woodpeckers at suet feeders, but many times in the wild I have seen Downy Woodpeckers and Chickadees picking at the fat of a dead deer carcass. For one month in May thousands of songbirds flying north from Central America get to the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio and stop exhausted and hungry. But at that very time in early May, hundreds of thousands of Caddisflies hatch and provide the needed food for the birds to make it across the lake. The same scenario I’ve seen in birds that make it across Lake Erie at Point Pelee, a park in Ontario with a peninsula that stretches out into the lake, one of the first spots birds stop to find more to eat to replenish their supplies.Many of you may have witnessed God supplying birds with food in some way or another. The Creator of the universe has provided for His birds, sometimes specifically by how they were created, and sometimes by the impact of other parts of His creation like the Caddisfly hatch. God loves us so much, how much more will He provide for us.Karl Schmidt, Birdwatcher ☆
