Washington Post: A massive data analysis reveals the answer. “Presenting the ultimate bird-feeder pecking order The interactions between birds in the park or at your backyard feeder may look like chaos, but they’re actually following the subtle rules of a hidden avian social order. Armed with a database of almost 100,000 bird interactions, experts known as ornithologists have decoded that secret pecking order and created a continentwide power ranking of almost 200 species — from the formidable wild turkey at the top to the tiny, retiring brown creeper at the bottom. Their work illuminates an elaborate hidden hierarchy: Northern mockingbirds and red-bellied woodpeckers are pugnacious for their size, but both would give way if a truly dominant bird like an American crow descended upon the feeder. Tiny hummingbirds can’t afford to lose precious seconds of feeding time and thus punch way above their weight, while the pileated woodpecker, whose fearsome bill and impressive build gives it the aspect of a holdover pterodactyl, actually proves docile for its size. Now Miller has provided The Washington Post with a vastly expanded data set from Greig’s citizen-scientists — 99,376 interactions between almost 200 species, up from 7,685 interactions in the 2017 study — and shared the methods needed to produce the most detailed bird power ranking yet published. Predators aren’t included as their relationship with these birds is not one of social dominance…”