Birds' bizarre behaviour in garden puzzles Aussie woman: 'Playing dead'

Yahoo

28-01-2025

An Aussie is searching for answers after spotting numerous birds lying on the ground in her garden 'looking dead'. The woman, who lives on the NSW Mid North Coast, said she couldn't help but notice noisy miners and other birds performing the bizarre behaviour in recent weeks.
Seeking an explanation, she posted photos online of the animals pressing their bellies into the sand and mulch with their wings extended and feathers slightly ruffled. While some stunned Aussies agreed they had 'never seen' birds act in such a way, numerous others said it was just 'normal' behaviour and shared videos of the creatures lounging around their own homes.
'Looks like they are playing dead, so funny!' one woman wrote. 'The local magpies do the same in our backyard. Freaked me out at first. So I now have a bird bath as well for the summer heat cool down!' another added.
Several people said the birds were simply sunbathing and 'and 'anting' to get rid of feather mites'. 'What a compliment they obviously feel safe with your home,' an excited social media user commented.
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Speaking to Yahoo News, Sean Dooley with BirdLife Australia confirmed the noisy miners and white-winged chough seen in the woman's garden are indeed 'sunning' themselves.
'Sometimes when birds do this they do so on top of an ant hill, getting the ants to crawl all over them,' he explained. 'It is not agreed upon whether the ants are eating parasites from the birds' skin or whether the chemical traces from the ants' formic acid acts as a kind of antiseptic or disinfectant.
'But I don't think that's going on here. It looks like these birds are sunning themselves.'
Sunning is thought to be another way birds can treat their skin to keep it parasite free, 'perhaps from the UV rays, though some people have suggested it is a way for them to dissipate heat on a hot day', Dooley said.
'One study on noddies, a type of seabird that sunned themselves at their nesting colonies, showed that the temperature of the sun on a hot day was enough to kill lice on the birds but the cost is high as the birds can overheat, so they are sometimes seen panting,' he added.
Queensland birdwatcher Jill Brown said in an article published by Australian Birdlife in 2013 that sometimes birds simply perform such behaviour because it feels good. 'As she notes, sometimes the birds seem to bliss out while doing it, so we can't rule out sometimes they just do it for pleasure's sake!' Dooley said.
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