While we're going to continue our series on baby animals this week, it's impossible to overlook the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which is growing more catastrophic by the day, including 11 precious lives lost and an incalculable impact on ecosystems and all forms of sea life. 

While it was intially thought the spill would be contained fairly quickly, anywhere from 5,000 to 25,000 barrels of oil are still gushing from the BP Deepwater Horizon rig off the coast of Louisiana every day.  In fact, the oil slick is "already the size of Puerto Rico," and is quickly swelling into the worst in American history, even larger than the Alaskan Exxon Valdez tanker disaster of 1989 (Stephanie Feldstein's "Oil Spill Could Be Worst Case Scenario for Wildlife" on Change.org, and aslo AlterNet's "Oil Disaster 5X Worse than Estimated, 'Churning Slick' Now the Size of Puerto Rico").

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The following meaningful devotional comes from Scott Williams, who recently launched a creation care effort called Creation Hope.  Scott posts a weekly reflection in a Green Verses series, which "highlight(s) scriptures that point to God as the Creator, His sovereignty over the earth, His redemption of the earth, and our call to participate in that redemption."  This one, on Matthew 6:26, caught my attention especially:

Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. (RSV)

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Before we wrap up our series on wild birds with one last post on our unofficial mascot Spoggy the sparrow, I'd be remiss not to pass along one of the most wide-ranging and engrossing resources I've come across on the subject.  I'll be forever grateful to my cousin Ben Aldridge for exposing me to The Life of Birds, a BBC television series narrated by the always engaging David Attenborough.

The series is made up of ten 50-minute episodes (which you can watch for free on YouTube), each of which examines primarily wild birds by a different theme: the mystery of flight, diets, communication, mating and birthing, and more.  The range of birds portrayed in terms of location, size, coloring and personality is staggering, and infinitely captivating. 

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