Description

Battalion and the Bird

I had gone out on the California trail of the Mormon Battalion from the Imperial Desert to Mission San Luis Rey. It had been a powerful day as I saw where the Battalion marched in 1846-47 and learned a little of what they endured. There were places where I could almost see them plodding across the barren desert landscape in exhaustion, struggling to put one foot in front of the other. They had no idea what was waiting for them in California, but obedient to the counsel of Prophets of God they had volunteered, left their families, and begun one of the longest infantry marches in US military history. Those men and women made history that has been largely forgotten or ignored.

The next morning I went out for a run along the beach, not far from where the Battalion marched south to San Diego. As I ran, I reflected on the Battalion’s incredible sacrifice and contribution. I had gone a few miles when I noticed a rather ordinary looking bird, about the size of a crow, also on the beach. His most unusual feature was a very long bill that was dark-tipped. What caught my attention was the bird was marching along the beach where I was— just at the water line where the waves came in. As the bird walked, it would thrust its bill into the wet sand—not very deep, but then suddenly it would stop and thrust the entire bill down into the sand almost covering its eyes. It would probe and poke and then come up and swallow. It was feeding! There was some form of groceries buried in the sand.

I stopped running and walked along the beach in tandem with the bird, watching its feeding behavior. As near as I could tell, he had no idea where food was buried in the feature-less sand,
but he never stopped walking and probing. I kept watching and learning until a dog came running along and ended my fun.

I came home still thinking about the Battalion, but this odd bird kept intruding into my thoughts. Finally, I stopped my research and looked him up. What I learned surprised me. The bird is
called a Bar-tailed Godwit and it has been called the “Jet Fighter” of birds. This very ordinary- looking bird holds the world record for the longest and fastest non-stop bird flight. On September
16, 2020 a tagged male Godwit left southwest Alaska and flew non-stop to Auckland, New Zealand arriving eleven days later—a distance of 7500 miles.

Dr. Jesse Conklin, a scientist studying the birds, said:

“They seem to have some capability of knowing where they are on the globe. We can’t really explain it but they seem to have an onboard map. They are flying over open ocean for days and days in the mid-Pacific; there is no land at all. Then they get to New Caledonia and Papua New Guinea where there are quite a few islands and, we might be anthropomorphising, but it really looks like they start spotting land and sort of think: ‘Oh, I need to start veering or I will miss New Zealand’. It is not certain but it is believed the birds do not sleep on the journey during which they flap their wings most of the time. They have an incredibly efficient fuel-to-energy rate. They have a lot of things going for them. They are designed like a jet fighter. Long, pointed wings and a really sleek design which gives them a lot of aerodynamic potential.”

I could not help seeing the similarities between the Battalion and the bird. Both made an incredible journey of faith and endurance. Both made history and both appeared so ordinary that no one noticed the great thing they had done. And the power behind them both was that of Almighty God whose mysterious purposes are fulfilled and we mere mortals so little understand how.

Source:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/13/jet-fighter-godwit-breaks-world-
record-for-non-stop-bird-flight