There are more than 10,000 species of birds on Earth, each of which possesses its own unique features. Hawks have very sharp eyes, broad wings and pointed talons. Plovers, weighing just a few hundred grams, flap their wings for 88 hours non-stop on the journey of 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) that they make every winter, crossing the ocean without mishap. With their ability to imitate sounds including human speech, parrots are among the cleverest of living things. Although anatomy of their mouths is wholly different—they have no teeth or lips, for instance—they are able to produce sounds very similar to those they hear. With their long beaks, the hummingbirds—the smallest known species of birds—can feed on flower nectar and the small insects they find inside flowers. In order to feed, they needs to hover in the air in front of the flower, and with its specially created features, they are the only species of bird able to do so. Jays bury the bonito fish they collect for later use. With their powerful memories, they are able to find and extract these fish even after nine months have passed, in forests where every tree resembles every other.
The way that birds show devoted behavior towards their young is also most striking. Some birds construct highly intricate nests, taking account of a great many factors during their construction. Birds living by the seashore, for example, build nests that cannot be flooded, using the appropriate materials for this. They even calculate how their future young should come to no harm in the event that water levels rise. Some marsh-dwelling birds build nests with high walls so that their eggs cannot be blown out by the wind.
How are such different types of nests, intelligent behavior and altruism, whose variety would fill many volumes, possible for these creatures, which are totally without reason or training?
It is impossible for them to have gradually developed the features they possess, because they could not have survived during the intermediate stages of any such process. Indeed, no creature has ever grown to perfection in stages, as evolutionists would have us believe. On the contrary, all different living groups have existed in their current perfect states ever since they first appeared in the Earth's geological strata.
This is scientific evidence that birds too were created, and this evidence represents a truth taught to human beings in the Qur'an: it is Allah, the Creator of all things, Who created these creatures with all the features they possess and the systems appropriate to them.
In verses, Allah reveals His dominion over the living world:
“. . . There is no creature He does not hold by the forelock.” (Surah Hud, 56)
