Lunch from head to tail - oxpecker birds eat lice and ticks on larger animals in Africa - Cover Story

Ranger Rick, Sept, 1996 by Ellen Holtzen

What's fur lunch? These birds know just where to dig in.

If you were this nasty-tempered Cape buffalo, would you let a little bird perch on your head and pick around in your fur? Yup--Cape buffaloes and other large mammals do it all the time. In fact, they usually treat this little African bird, called an oxpecker, as a guest.

Why? The oxpeckers gobble up ticks and lice that suck blood from the mammals' skin. And when the birds spot danger, they make hissing noises. This alarm call may warn the mammals to move out of harm's way.

So it's a good deal for everyone. The mammals end up with fewer pests and get warned of danger lurking nearby. And the hungry birds get a bellyful of food.

LUNCH IS ON ME

A giraffe's neck makes a wonderfully long lunch counter for these oxpeckers. And even though "peck" is part of their name, the birds usually just push their beaks through a mammal's hair. This stirs up creatures to snatch.

At nesting time, the birds may pluck some long hairs from giraffes and other mammals to line their tree-hole nests.

THIS MAY NOT TICK-LE

What's this bird finding to eat on the zebra? Could be it's going for blood instead of ticks!

That muddy stripe is a bad wound the zebra got--probably in a narrow escape from a lion. The oxpecker picks at the blood around the scab. Watch out, little bird, the zebra might not put up with that for long!

MORE THAN A FOOD WAGON

The hungry bird here is getting ready to nibble tiny creatures near the hippo's eyes and in its ears. Some brave oxpeckers even snatch tiny creatures hiding near this and other mammals' mouths.

The birds don't just use the mammals as fly-in restaurants. As the big animals calmly move around looking for food, the birds sunbathe and even mate on top of them!

THE TAIL END

Wherever this oxpecker wanders on the rhino--from head to tail--it'll always find more little pests to snatch. Oxpeckers aren't fussy. They'll search any part of any mammal. In fact, sometimes they even land on people's heads! Would you be as glad as an African mammal if an oxpecker looked for lunch in your hair?