Psalm 104 is a wonderful Psalm of praise to God focused on the beauty and wonder of His creation. I've had in mind a while to write a series of posts based on Psalm 104, not necessarily "in order." Verse 24 is one of my favorite verses of the Psalm:
O LORD, what a variety of things you have made!
In wisdom you have made them all.
The earth is full of your creatures.
I'll write more about this verse, but for now the final phrase stands out. A couple of nights ago I headed out with a friend into the woods after dark in intermittent early spring showers. We came to a site he knew of-- a couple of days before only a damp depression in the forest floor, but now a shallow pool of rainwater. From afar we could hear the high pitched calls of the Spring Peepers; as we approached, the lower-pitched "chattering" sound of a large chorus of wood frogs. As we stood and swept our flashlights over the water, dozens and dozens of spotted salamanders became visible (photo-- along with a wood frog). And still again as we began searching along the perimeter of the pool, a good number of silvery salamanders. All four of these amphibian species are normally not animals you'd be likely to see, but here they all were in large numbers in a yearly event repeated in temporary woodland pools across N. America. Whether or not we're there to observe them, there they are. Turn a log over, look under a stone-- places we never see teem with fascinating creatures we could never imagine. The earth is full of His creatures.
For more about temporary woodland pools and spring amphibians, see this Environmental Almanac post on the topic.
