The Town Crier: Pecking order

Published 8:00 am Sunday, August 20, 2023

We like to watch those nature shows on TV. Although the information is more up to date, the “plot” is still much the same as the old Disney “True Life Adventures,” where a certain animal is chosen and then we follow a season in the life of the hero critter.

Along the way we take some side trails to some of the other animals and plants that make up that habitat. At some point, some other animal comes along to eat our hero, unless the story is following an apex predator animal, aka top o’ the food chain.

In current nature shows they usually point out that humans are at the top of the chain and so must be good conservators of said animals’ habitat. But if you watch enough of these documentaries you realize “man” is only at the top of the pecking order until a great white shark shows up. Or a virus.

I think instead of a pyramid with us at the top pointy part, nature’s pecking order is more like a wagon wheel, where we’re at the hub and we can go along the spokes and conquer any of the beasts as long as we have technology, but the animals can certainly come our way and enjoy a free lunch on any given day. “Polar Bear Versus Man” sounds like it’s anybody’s game if the man has a gun. But “Polar Bear Versus Man Whose Snowmobile is Out of Gas,” well, I know who I’m betting on!

From the beginning

We learn pecking order from the beginning. Parents first. Then gradually it’s older siblings, Grandparents, aunts and uncles, teachers and so on. In kindergarten they sang that song “There was an old woman who swallowed a fly, I don’t know why she swallowed a fly. Perhaps she’ll die.”

First of all, before we get to the pecking order of that song, let me say when I first heard it I was appalled. First that they were singing about eating insects and secondly that some old lady was going to kick off because of it. It wasn’t until about fifth grade when I heard that camp song “The Worms Crawl In, The Worms Crawl Out” that the old fly-eating lady song was topped. On the other hand, my attention was locked on the “old lady” song as things went from bad to worse.

The old lady swallows a fly, then swallows a spider to get rid of the fly. Yikes. Things just got worse. Next it’s a bird, then a cat, then a dog, which all makes sense on some level, but then she swallows a goat to go after the dog. Unless the goat is going to butt the dog out of her stomach, I don’t know what’s going on with this lady anymore. Then it’s an anti-goat attack cow and finally a horse, which finally does her in. Little kindergarten me was dumbstruck.

A year or two later I came across a children’s book of the story. On the one hand I did not want to see this horror story illustrated, on the other hand it was like a car wreck, or a photo of myself from the 1970s, I just had to look. With the animal list of the lady’s edibles, I was learning about pecking orders.

The term pecking order came from Norway and scientist Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe and a Ph.D. paper he submitted in 1921 on chickens. It turns out chickens peck each other to establish their place in the flock, hence pecking order. The idea of a hierarchy like that was quickly applied to people and also to the animal food chain.

When it’s summertime around here you get plenty of opportunities to see the animal kingdom pecking order in action. Who needs a nature show on TV; just keep your eyes open. You might not see a lion pounce on a zebra, but you should see my cat pounce on a grasshopper. It’s the same thing, just scaled down in size and without the slow motion replay. You might be surprised how much nature action you can see just from the porch.

An acrobatic show

Perhaps the most likely chance to see survival of the suburban fittest are the birds eating. Between bugs on dry days and worms on wet days, when a bird swoops down you can bet there’s prey in the sights.

After a big rain the birds are hopping around the yard looking for worms who have come up for air. There’s something entertaining about the hunt and capture when you see a robin peck at the ground and then fly away with a ribbon of protein dangling from its beak.

Likewise, on a sunny day the excitement of the hunt is there as birds dive down after a grasshopper or some other six-limbed meal. The action really gets going about sunset when, at the end of a summer day, with a long dusk easing into night, all those little gnats are swarming. The swallows and martins come in like stunt flyers to snatch up the little bite-sized (for them) bug nuggets. It’s truly an acrobatic show, especially if you can find a viewing spot in the middle of the feeding frenzy. The birds swing around in what seems impossible moves and you’d think the bugs don’t have a chance against that kind of flying agility, but I’m sure plenty of the little flying insects get away, to live in terror another day.

The night patrol

But don’t go in just because it’s gotten too dark for the birdies. Next up in the “we’re over bugs” pecking order we get the night patrol, the bats! They fly around with mosquito-seeking sonar, and if you can see them silhouetted against the last light in the night sky you’ll see a show every bit as amazing as anything on TV.

Think how hard it is to swat a mosquito when she’s after you. Now add to that you’re flying and trying to catch it in your mouth and you’ll appreciate what a job those bats are doing.

A couple of summers ago we had bats living in our belfry, well, on the outside of the attic vent, and in just a couple of weeks they had scooped up all the bugs around the house. Take that you pesky pests.

The other flying night raider is the owl. I’ve never seen one attack or bag the big game they go after (mice, rabbits, pets?) but in one of the weirdest things I ever saw, one night near my house in a remote stretch of side road someone had tossed the filleted remains of those giant catfish they have up in Lake Chickamauga. As I came around the curve there were the catfish carcasses, which was strange enough, but perched on them in a literal “I’m over you in the pecking order” pose was a huge owl. I guess it’s not often the owls around here get seafood.

Giving the game away

Taking a cue from the “old lady who swallowed” song, we can move along to the dogs. I don’t know about you, but my dogs are almost always on the hunt but never seem to bag the game. The birds fly, the squirrels scamper and the rabbits disappear into the bushes before the dogs can get any points on the scoreboard. That doesn’t mean they aren’t above the smaller critters on the pecking order, it just means there’s not much pecking happening.

For my dogs, I think part of the issue is they get so excited about going after their target, they give the game away, galloping, panting and even barking, spoiling any sneaking up that may contribute to their success.

The squirrels seem especially bemused by the whole thing. On the nature shows you see the wolf or the lioness move up slowly, patiently, attentively on the animal they have their supper sights on. My dogs are more like excited cowboys going after rustlers. “Whoop-ee! Yee-haw! Here we come squirrels, ready or not!” and the squirrels, unsurprisingly, are always ready.

Watch it, cat

Ah, but the cat, she’s clearly been watching the nature shows with us, peering through the window when she was outside, or with one eye open when we thought her napping in our laps. I’ve seen her time and time again do one of those high, arching pounces into the grass like a nature show snow fox when they leap at the noise of a mouse two feet under the snow.

With the cat, you never know what it’s going to be until the remains are laid on the porch. If the cat had a den with trophy heads mounted on the wall they would include lizards, moles, grasshoppers, mice, chipmunks and various and sundry birds.

Just the other day, movement caught my eye outside the window and the cat was jumping down from a bird feeder I have no idea how she got to. I watched as she tromped across the yard, prey held firmly between fangs. I went out and met her as she put the victory of cat over bird on the ground and spat out feathers. Watch it, cat. My pecking order is a wagon wheel, and that means that you versus a wren is a win for you in the pecking order sweepstakes, but tonight the owl may be the one on top of the heap.

As for me? I’ll be “pecking it” over a bowl of ice cream any time now.