Betelgeuse and Buffleheads
by twentyfiveforty
“I think it’s a hooded merganser- pretty sure I saw the large white splotch on its head but it flew by so fast…”
“It could have been a bufflehead- sometimes it’s hard to tell from a far distance. Look to see if it has a thin bill or not next time.”
Ah, surveying waterfowl. I was lucky enough to venture out to Bulls Island a couple of weeks ago with a quartet of experienced birders and they were able to cue me in on an array of useful tips like this. I’ve amassed several bird guides and have spent hours pouring through them, only to realize that the idealized photograph of a duck on paper is not what you’re likely to perceive in the field. On paper, the differences between hooded mergansers and buffleheads couldn’t be more clear-cut: males of the latter have rather cutesy appearances with iridescent purple/green sheen on their heads and black backs; males of the former have pompous black hoods with black backs and brown flanks. Both have a white patch of-sorts on their head… enough to throw the novice (such as myself) for a loop when viewed from a distance.
The distinction is important to a wildlife manager as the differences between each duck go beyond their appearances. For example, unlike the bufflehead, fish make up the primary component of the merganser’s diet. A manager would need to ensure water quality is conducive enough to support a healthy population and variety of fish if they had to prioritize for the merganser over the bufflehead or other species for some reason. It’s a science, and it’s pretty rare to read information on a bird of any sort from a database or guide and see a sentence such as “Not much is known about this species, including its diet.”
In fact, it’s astounding how most everything around us seems accounted for by science. The bufflehead:
Bucephala albeola. Wingspan: 55 cm. Length: 32-40 cm. Weight: 272-635 g. Eats insects, crustaceans, and mollusks, as well as some seeds. Dives for prey and swallows food underwater. Nests in tree cavity or nest box, lined with downy feathers from chest of female. Clutch size: 4-17 eggs.
The hooded merganser:
Lophodytes cucullatus. Wingspan: 60-66 cm. Length: 40-49 cm. Weight: 453-879 g. Eats fish, aquatic insects, and crustaceans (especially crayfish). Dives underwater to catch prey. Nests in tree cavity or nest box, lined with downy feathers from chest of female. Clutch size: 5-44 eggs.
More than 100 species of ducks in the world, and all accounted for: Genus. Species. Appearance. Weight. Length. Wingspan. Breeding season. Clutch size. Reproduction. Diet. Behavior. Vocalization. Conservation status, etc. Thanks to mankind’s tedious observations of duck species, we’re able to distinguish a dabbling duck (eats by upturning its tail and “dipping” for food) from a diving duck simply by watching how it takes off in flight from the water (FTR, dabblers can “lift-off” straight-up while divers skim the surface for a while).
At first, I couldn’t help but wonder if our picking-apart of every last thing harms our ability to truly appreciate the Creation. Do our descriptions of the natural world cheapen its beauty? (I’m reminded of the scene in the film Dead Poet’s Society when Robin Williams’ character instructs his students to rip out the introduction of a textbook that assigns quantitative formulas in an attempt to evaluate poetry.) After much consideration, I’ve realized that I had the whole narrative wrong: our cataloging of every last thing on our planet and beyond falls completely within God’ s sovereign plan.
Have you ever stargazed, unaware of what was a cloud or what was an immense cluster of distant stars? Such was the case a few nights ago when I took an early morning trip to the Isle of Palms, and it was an incredibly captivating experience .
A small fraction of God's glory.
The stars slowly began to emerge as I walked on the beach away from the light pollution- away from the condominiums, touristy restaurants, fishing piers and 1%’er beach homes. About a mile out with fully-adjusted eyes and no moon above, I retired to a sand dune to take it all in. There had to have been at least a million stars visible to my eyes, all resembling luminous grains of sand that God casually flung throughout the night sky.
With my back against a cold dune, I tried to conceive some sort of depth perception between myself and an individual star picked at random, hoping to give myself an appreciation for it as a massive ball of burning gas and not some speck in the sky. I imagined all its little orbiting planets, wondering if any one of them were similar to one I was sitting on. I wondered what it would be like to be aboard a hypothetical space shuttle that could travel 10 times the speed of light and how long it would take to reach said star.
Then I noticed the Orion constellation (which I love because I’m pretty terrible at stargazing and Orion’s belt is always easily recognizable). My mind began working through the whole process again, awestruck at the thought of each star possibly harboring its own system of planets, but my fascination was squelched by the realization that all these stars were already accounted for by astronomers: Betelgeuse, Rigel, Bellatrix, Mintaka, Alnilam, Alnitak, Saiph. (thanks, Wikipedia!). I’m not even sure mankind will get the opportunity to visit Betelgeuse’s system, but we already know that if the star itself was placed at the center of our solar system, astronomers believe its surface would go beyond Mars. The magnitude of the moment and its forcing me to realize how incredibly tiny I am is what I love so much about looking at the stars.
A meteor streaks across the sky and in a flash is gone forever. For all the millions of named stars out there, there are an estimated 19,000 meteors a day that are intercepted by our atmosphere… and not a one of them has a name. There is a certain consolation in knowing that. The burning ball of space rock I see disintegrating via friction through our atmosphere is a simple flash of God’s glory, untouched by the minds and cold observatories of mankind.
Laying on the dune with my neck bent towards the cosmos, a verse soon comes to mind:
“The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.” -Psalm 19:1
I found it interesting that it took me a good 10 or 15 minutes to recall this verse. It’s almost like God wanted me to appreciate his Creation for being the Creation, and not out of some faulty sense of religious obligation. I am thankful for this.
Back at home, I recall another verse:
“For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities– all things have been created through Him and for Him.” -Colossians 1:16
I had the whole narrative wrong. We’re not cheapening Creation’s beauty or God’s glory by categorizing and accumulating knowledge. The only vile misfortune is when we herald our scientific gains solely as a human triumph. When we do keep the whole of Creation in context, however, it brings God the full glory as it was created by and for Him.
If I step away from my own biases and try to image the universe through an atheistic lens, I still have a hard time overlooking the peculiarity that there is a living species of organisms out there that tries so desperately to understand how everything works. It still seems like an outrageous coincidence. Consider this quote (as obtained from a brilliant write-up by atheist Carl Sagan in quoting someone else):
“We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens. The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh enrichment.” -Johannes Kepler
That screams God to me. For all of our self-appointed and self-perceived worth due to gains in our scientific understanding, there are still countless mysteries that elude us. God created the universe vast enough so that no matter what, we’d still be probing his mysteries and wondering. Science is re-working itself continually… often what we think we know is proved to be partially or completely incorrect. Just last year, scientists discovered bacteria in Mono Lake, California that built DNA by using arsenic, which challenged preconceived ideas about organisms having to use only carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur or phosphorus to perform the same task.
When God assigned Adam the task of naming all the animals, it wasn’t mindless busy work. It was so that the first man ever could obtain an appreciation of His Creator first-hand, thereby giving God the glory. Now, in 2011, we’re still discovering new bacteria, animals, plants, etc. and assigning names to them. The wonder will never stop.
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I groggily raise myself from the sand dune and begin the 2-mile walk back to the parking lot at the center of town on the Isle of Palms. One by one the stars begin to disappear as I make my way back to the man-made glories of condos, homes, pavements, flood lights, and gas stations.
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From a book I received for Christmas last year: it’s an invaluable resource for the novice birder or wildlife manager with no detail of bird species spared, but I love how my mom kept everything in check:
"Enjoy all that God made for you"
Will do.
