Why This Warthog Lets Oxpeckers Ride All Over Its Face

[00:00:00]The rains ended long ago. The land has gone hard and pale. The warthog feeds on its knees. It has fed for hours.

[00:00:07]Something is feeding on it as well.

[00:00:09]Ticks have settled along its jawline, behind its ears, at the base of its tusks, and in the folds behind its shoulders. The warthog cannot reach a single one of them. It rubs its flank against a termite mound until the bristles bend flat. It kneels and throws dust across its own back. It shakes its head. It scratches its jaw with a hind hoof. Nothing comes loose. The oxpecker sleeps in dead branches and wakes hungry. It cannot dig. It cannot reach the ground for anything worth eating.

[00:00:45]Above it, a raptor turns in the heat.

[00:00:47]The small bird flattens against the branch and waits. Nothing on this plane is small and also safe. Everything it eats is carried on the back of something larger. Then it drops from the branch and crosses the open ground. It lands sideways on the flank and grips with curved claws. The bill opens and closes flat against the skin like a pair of shears. It works the hide in short passes, parting the bristles as it goes.

[00:01:21]It moves to the ear, then the fold behind it. One tick comes away whole, held in the orange bill, and is swallowed. The bird takes only what the hide was already carrying. The warthog [snorts] does not move. It has learned that this bird costs it nothing. By midday, the warthog goes down [music] into the wallow. Cool mud closes over its back, its belly, its legs, and its shoulders. The mud smothers what the bird has missed. Meanwhile, above the mudline, a second bird works the tail root. The wallow cools the skin. The birds clear what the wallow cannot. Both work at once, and neither knows the other is there. The warthog rises, and the mud dries pale across its hide. The birds return to the same places, the jaw, the ears, the ribs, the belly, and the tail. One works upside down beneath the belly, where nothing else can reach.

[00:02:24]Another works the skin below the eye, moving in very small steps. It lies down on its side in the dust, and lets them work. Three birds cross its belly. Its legs stay flat. Nothing about this looks like tolerance. It looks like a routine.

[00:02:42]This will happen again tomorrow and the day after. The water hole holds zebra, impala, and giraffe through the hottest hour.

[00:03:03]>> [whistles] >> On the far line of the plain, a lioness is walking. The warthog lifts its head.

[00:03:50]Its ears come forward. The birds stay where they are. The lioness passes without turning. The head comes down.

[00:03:59]The feeding starts again. The head stops shaking. The ears stop twitching. The eyes close to a narrow line and stay there. Two birds settle on its back and face each other. Neither of them moves for a long time. The bird has eaten. The warthog is clean. Neither one chose the other. The arrangement simply holds. The birds will find another back before the light goes. In dry country, the smallest animals decide what the largest ones can carry.

[00:07:42]>> What?

[00:07:46]What?

[00:07:49]What?

[00:07:52]What?

[00:07:54]>> [groaning] >> What?

[00:07:57]What?

[00:07:58]>> [snorts]