Mallee Fowl Families.
It’s difficult to see anything special about Mallee fowl, the rather drab looking, chicken-sized Australian birds. Their singing doesn’t exactly turn heads either but the way that they nest and raise their young, is spectacular.
Mallee fowl mate for life, and go about raising their families in a most surprising way. Firstly, they painstakingly excavate an incubation mound. It can be up to three meters across and about a meter deep. They carefully fill it, over a period of months, with layers of sand, grass, leaves and other organic matter.
When it rains, the male bird carefully exposes the organic matter to the water as he mixes and arranges the heap. He’s a bit of a phenomenon. He has special temperature measuring organs in his beak and he’s able to regulate the temperature in the mound by shifting things around. He harnesses the heat of the decomposing organic matter and manages it so that the mound remains a constant 33 degrees C.
The female has her own challenge. Each egg she lays is approximately 10% of her body weight, and she lays one every week for pretty much half the year. Dad takes each egg and positions it in the mound to maintain it’s temperature until it hatches. A few degrees out could mean the end of the eggs, and a step closer to the fate of the Dodo.
It’s clearly tough for Mom and Dad, but spare a thought for the kids. They’re buried quite deep and after hatching, have to use their feet to dig their way to the surface where they can breath a sigh of relief and run off to start their own adventure.
The way that God designed and equipped the Mallee Fowl is astounding. Each of us also have our own gifts and challenges, and it’s so important to discuss these as a family. We need to share and understand the difficulties we face, and celebrate our gifts and abilities. Mallee fowl are great, but human families are even better, and so much more precious in God’s eyes. We really must make the most of every opportunity together, especially in these times.
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