The Brush Turkey

I am always amazed when I listen to someone who believes in the big bang theory. Who would believe that the computer I am typing on just evolved over the years and added its own software programs? ( If life were like that , you wouldn’t need Visa!)

To see God’s wisdom revealed in His creation is a given… you cannot find one detail of nature where God’s wisdom is not on display. Even after 6,000 years man has not figured out how to reproduce even the most basic miracle of creation.
I like the little story told about three scientists ......
One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."
God listened very patiently to the man. After the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well, how about this? Let's say we have a man-making contest." To which the scientist replied, "Okay, great!" But God added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."
The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God looked at him and said, "No, no -- you go get your own dirt."

I babysat my granddaughter last week because she was home sick from school and we watched a nature documentary together. The subject was the Australian Brush Turkey… and I found it fascinating. The wisdom of God hidden in His creation is inexhaustible.
God says the man who says “there is no God” is a fool. The brush turkey would agree!

The Australian Brush Turkey has mainly black feathers, a bare red head and draped around the male’s head a yellow throat wattle that looks exactly like a scarf draped around his neck.
Sometime in the dying days of winter, the male brush turkey begins to build a mound. Using his very strong feet, he pushes leaves, twigs and dirt from as far as 20 meters away into a huge mound. He works every day from dawn until dusk for over a month. In this time he moves several tons of material - enough to fill a small truck several times..
When he assesses the mound of leaves to be large enough , he covers it with dirt and then more leaves on top. Satisfied with the completion of the mound, he digs a hole into the center and tests the temperature with his sensitive tongue. If the forest floor temperature is 13.5 degrees Celsius, the center of the mound is already warmer at 26’ - but not warm enough to incubate eggs. He waits.
The leaves in the mound begin to decompose aided by the sun, oxygen , earthworms, bacteria and fungi. The rains come and soak the mound , speeding the process. Over time the mount center temperature can rise as high as 40’.
(The composting skills of the brush turkey would be the envy of most human gardeners!)
The brush turkey returns to his mound time and again to test the temperature.
When he is finally satisfied that the temperature is right , 33 degrees, he starts to advertise for a female. Females will choose their mate based on their approval of the mound temperature. The female turkey shops around…checking out all the mounds in her territory before she makes her choice of the one she considers to be best. Making her choice , she mates very quickly with the builder of her chosen mound and then leaves. The male turkey stays by his mound and he spends the night in a near by tree. The next day the female returns and digs a hole deep into the mound where she lays an egg that is ¼ her body weight. She returns every day until she has laid 20 eggs in the mound. She lays them 20 cm. apart in a circle around the center of the mound where the temperature is best for incubation. When she has finished laying 20 eggs, she moves on to choose another mound, mate again and start the egg laying process all over again. She never returns to her eggs and never sees her chicks.
It is the male turkey who guards his mound and the eggs the female has laid. He is very protective over it and will chase away any predator, even the very poisonous black snake, by kicking branches and debris into it’s face.
The eggs incubate for 50 days until one day in spring the baby chicks hatch , one by one, spending two days burrowing out of the mound. They emerge from their nest fully feathered and as mature as a barnyard hen’s chicks are at 4 weeks. They are in danger as soon as they emerge from the mound, their first enemy being their own father who mistakes them for an intruder. Instinctively , they sit very still, camouflaged by the leaves on top of the mound.
They wait until their father is preoccupied else where and then run as fast as they can for shelter under nearby vegetation to begin their solitary life. Though they never bond with either parent, and are never taught the ways of the brush turkey , they are fully equipped to survive on their own… knowing how or what to eat and are able to fly as soon as they emerge from the nest.
They will spend the next few years of their life alone, watching and waiting to start the whole process all over again.

What an amazing software program is built into these bird-brained turkeys!!
From the largest whale to the tiniest bug, every creature in God's creation has a unique life cycle… each tells a wonderful story of God’s wisdom told with such imaginative detail that only the mind of an infinitely wise Creator could have conceived of it.