The breakfast club
Lamentations of a creature of darkness
I have nothing against breakfast. This is especially after having pancakes for breakfast. I am also a fan of bacon and eggs. The trouble is that breakfast clubs are different from supper clubs.
Just give me all the bacon and eggs you have. Wait … I worry what you heard was, ‘Give me a lot of bacon and eggs.’ What I said was, give me all the bacon and eggs you have. Do you understand? — Ron Swanson, Parks and Recreation
In order to have breakfast, one needs to wake up. Many places do not have all day breakfast. Coffee helps. Coffee unfortunately also messes up my plumbing. I can still live with waking up when the sun is up. The bar however is now raised by some early birds. Actually, lowered as the sun will not rise for another two hours. I am only talking about the sun at the equator as people at different latitudes experience seasons.
The early bird catches the worm
For all kids who have been forced to wake up before sunrise, this cliche is probably overused. We still use it in the adult world but it is now called the 5am club. The rest of the night owls end up being sent to the breakfast club. For those who did not watch the movie, the breakfast club is a euphemism by kids for being punished by an early morning mandatory activity at school.
The truth is that if you are not a morning creature, you might just end up being breakfast for the early predator. As the predator, you only need to wake up after your prey. For sensitive readers, please skip the next paragraph.
“The second mouse gets the cheese!”
― Terry Pratchett, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
The lizard is in for a very bad day. The shrike is also called the butcherbird as it has a habit of hanging up its prey. If its prey is sufficiently large or suspected to be poisonous, it will impale its prey and return at a later date. Interestingly, there is a species of birds called the butcherbirds that practice the same kitchen habits as the shrike. Something about birds of the larder.
Rooster crowing at the break of day
Roosters were supposed to be alarm clocks for farmers. Except that chickens crow around the clock. I learnt this fact during a night military exercise when I walk past an egg farm. It turned out that hens also crow.
There is a second reason why roosters crow. This rooster was crowing at the 9am. It was also hiding in a tree, so I assume it was not defending its territory. The part that surprised me was when it flew down and charged at me.
It turned out that I was not the target for the charge. There was a hen behind me. It turned out that the rooster wanted a reproduction experiment that involved the hen. The hen however was actively against animal testing especially as it involved her. She flew up a tree. When the rooster flew to the branch that the hen was, the hen promptly flew to a higher branch. While squawking the fowl version of “I have a headache.”
The rooster then tried to play it cool by appearing to ignore the hen. The rooster discovered that its membership at the mile high club had expired.
Nature has brunch and teatime
The picture below is a purple heron with a fish. The fish was caught at eleven, so it is no longer breakfast. The downside of getting a natural brunch is that branches can be part of the meal. But I digress.
The reason why the heron caught the fish was because an otter had just dived into the water next to it. Which is my point. There are opportunities at different parts of the day. This is especially true because some birds have unihemispheric slow-wave sleep. That means that the creature can sleep and still have enough brain function to avoid danger. There are birds that spend days flying or gliding during migration. Part of the reason is that some birds fly over oceans that do not have suitable landing sites.
Unless you have a specific type of bird brain (or dolphin brain if you have an issue being compared with avians), sleep is necessary. Good sleep in which one is properly rested when waking up. If you want to wake up at 5am to for a specific reason like exercise without the daytime heat or gloat over other sleeping humans, knock yourself out. If you want to avoid spending money on nightlife, I can understand.
Please spare me the sermon about it being healthier or natural because the animal kingdom is a 24-hour restaurant. For members of the 5am club, please adopt the first rule of fight club. Or the second rule.