Singing Birds and the Bible

There is not much mention of birdsong in the Bible. A brief mention in Psalm 104 about birds singing in the branches, and a mention in Ecclesiastes 12 about the elderly being no longer able to hear the sound of birds. Other than that, birds are mostly mentioned for flying or being birds of prey. It makes me wonder if the birds in the middle-east are poor singers.

Surely, if the psalmists and prophets had been around birds that had wonderful songs, they would have written more about them. Growing up in Nebraska, the most impressive birdsong I heard was the Meadowlark. These days in Minnesota, some of my favorite bird songs are the common loon, the turtledove, the cardinal, the chickadee, and the oriole.

This morning, I stumbled across a video of the lyre bird, the most amazing singing bird I've ever seen or heard. I think you, too, will find him to be very impressive. If ever a bird deserved to get mentioned in the book of Psalms, you'd think it would be a bird named after a lyre. Too bad their wasn't a psalmist from Australia. Maybe the writer of Psalm 71 was! He wrote, "I will sing praise to you with the lyre."



If you can think of other Bible passages that mention the songs of birds, I'd love to hear from you.