REVELATION AND INSPIRATION — Guidance From God

To achieve their goal they fly in a systematic order and direction which is most suitable for them. They choose their paths in such a manner that their flight over the sea is minimized. Maximizing their journeys over land allows them to take advantage of updrafts and thermals to maintain their soaring flight and rest on land as and when required. Today when the captain of a ship sets sail across the oceans, he is able to do so, utilizing the knowledge gained from thousands of years of human experience. As a result, migration through the Mediterranean basin is concentrated at a number of narrow straits and ‘land bridges’. Many migrants cross from southern Italy, over the Messina Strait to Sicily and on into North Africa, some via Malta. Another group takes the path over the land mass of Greece that extends a long way into the Mediterranean and then onto Crete before crossing over into Africa at the narrowest part of the sea in this region. Other birds circumvent the Mediterranean to the East, passing into Anatolia via the Turkish Straits of Bosphorous and Dardanelles. From here, they cross into the Middle East at the Belen Pass before heading down the Jordan Rift Valley to Egypt and the Red Sea. The majority of these birds enter into Africa through the Sinai Peninsula before heading south along the Nile valley. Yet another group of migrant birds follow a completely western route over the Strait of Gibraltar where the sea crossing into Africa is only ten miles. In the words of an ornithologist, ‘these well-separated routes are a probably a result of a stork's aversion to long flights over water and the support they require over land’. This was the very same reason that the ancient mariners crossed the seas from the straits rather than from the open seas. This migratory journey of birds is incredibly amazing. Today, when man undertakes such journeys, he can only do so with the help of many forms of knowledge. Birds however have neither the mental capability of man nor any other mechanism of utilising knowledge. Then how is it that these birds are successful in such complex journeys?