Early Birds and Punctilious Worms

It's said "The early bird catches the worm".

I think I'm OCD enough to debate this.

You see, in speaking of fowlish punctuality, the statement suggests a bird's ability to also appear on time and/or late.

Logically, punctual and late birds both catch the worm or a)early birds would be "birds" due to every bird possessing the same timely habits, or b) anything other than "early" would then fall out of the sky as a result of malnutrition, starvation, and irreversible deadness.

I surmise that only the most agile bird could indeed "catch" a worm, early or otherwise and most likely owing to claws or lack of opposable thumbs. Not to mention the unlikelihood of any worm enduring the bird's prompt schedule.

Bird and worm, for sake of argument, may or may not live according to the same time-table but we'll assume worm's schedule is relative to the early bird's or, theoretically speaking, the "bird" as a whole to make the statement more logical.

A proper quote would indicate that "birds catch worms".

Unfortunately, this modification unintentionally makes this quote is rather boring.

In setting to right silly notions of birds catching anything, we also ponder fowl biology.

Naturally, as predators go, birds don't "catch" their food. Instead, birds traditionally yank worms out of the ground with a complete disregard of worm's timing as it pertains to the bird's presence and subsequently adding to the worm's demise. Again, opposable thumbs.

Prudently altering the quote dynamic to reflect these truths creates another bit a quote perfection,

"The bird, fully ignorant of schedules, pulls with talons sharp, the equally ignorant worm from the earth and devours it."

So when do we get to hold a bird in the hand and estimate value to the two birds in a bush? Not today.....

(And this is what my brain does waiting 30 min for a Health Occ Advisor to change my major)