wonderbird

from Dean Ohlman of The Wonder of Creation ...  

God alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea.  He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.  He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. (Job 9:8-10, NIV)

The first time I remember seeing it, I could hardly believe my eyes—truly.  It was on a visit to Yellowstone about 5 years after the great fires of 1988.  The college group I accompanied was studying the ecology of the park and noting the mostly beneficial effects of the fires.  As they went about their research, I stopped at a mountain stream to do some photography.  Motion on the opposite bank caught my attention, and I focused in on a rather nondescript dark gray bird bobbing its tail wren-like on a rock that inclined into the torrent.  I’m sure my mouth must have dropped open in disbelief as the bird simply walked down the rock into the water—and then went under the water, stayed there for what seemed an impossibly long time, and then bobbed up a few yards upstream.

I stayed as long as I could to delight in what I soon learned from the biology professor was the American dipper.  Here indeed was one of those “wonders that cannot be fathomed.”  One who used some 6000 words to muse on the American dipper was John Muir, who devoted an entire chapter to the bird in his book The Mountains of California.  Here is how Muir characterized what a century ago was called the ouzel or water thrush (cinclus mexicanus):

He is the mountain streams’ own darling, the hummingbird of blooming waters, loving rocky ripple-slopes and sheets of foam as a bee loves flowers, as a lark loves sunshine and meadows.  Among all mountain birds, none has cheered me so much in my lonely wanderings,—none so unfailingly.  For both in winter and summer he sings, sweetly, cheerily, independent alike of sunshine and of love, requiring no other inspiration than the stream on which he dwells. While water sings, so must he, in heat or cold, calm or storm, ever attuning his voice in sure accord. . . .

Such then is our little cinclus, beloved of everyone who is so fortunate as to know him.  Tracing on strong wing every curve of the most precipitous torrents from one extremity of the Sierra to the other; not fearing to follow them through their darkest gorges and coldest snow tunnels; acquainted with every waterfall, echoing their divine music; and throughout the whole of their beautiful lives interpreting all that we in our unbelief call terrible in the utterances of torrents and storms, as only varied expressions of God’s eternal love.

I don’t think we really grasp the immensity of the cosmos and truly understand how rare life is within its vast reaches.  If we did, I believe we’d all soon have the powers of observation that John Muir had.  Life is a gift of God’s goodness and His love—a point that Muir made in nearly everything he wrote.

How long has it been since you stopped to really observe and marvel at the common backyard creatures that you typically take for granted?  Maybe you could take some time this week and emulate John Muir: grab a pen and notebook, go outdoors, and write out a word picture of one of God’s wonders that you hardly even give a second glance to.  Then thank God for the gift of life—even life of the humblest sort.

In a few days I will be in Muir’s beloved Yosemite Valley.  And you can be sure I will be keeping my eye out for this one of our Creator’s many wonderbirds!

(many thanks to Dean for sharing "Wonderbird," which was originally posted on The Wonder of Creation in July of 2011; photo of American Dipper credit Steve Byland/123rf.com, artwork of American Dipper by Joseph Wolf (1867) via Wikimedia Commons; video from National Geographic)