Page 27 - Amazing Creations Volume One

Amazing Creations 25

Richard Gunther

Would you stand still and allow a bird while a sharp beak pecked
repeatedly at and into your ear?
Most animals would hate it!
Most animals would react by shaking their heads and avoiding
the pesky bird.

Oxpeckers regularly perch on the heads of many of Africa's large
animals, and peck them everywhere - not just the ears!
The birds go for blood-sucking ticks and flies, but the price the
animals pay is the discomfort of sharp beak and sharp claws.

Oxpeckers even pull hair off their hosts, to use for nest-building.

Pictured is a kudu, patiently tolerating the claws and beak of the
oxpecker.

How does the kudu know the bird is doing it a useful service?
How do any of the animals know they need the bird, despite

its pain and irritation?
Perhaps they all learned they needed
an oxpecker, and then again perhaps
they already knew because God gave
them the knowledge.

Whatever the case, the oxpecker sure
fills a very important niche in the
web of life, as a cleaner.