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The toilet of most birds includes wetting their feathers in water and
shaking the feathers and preening them with the bill. This bathing
probably helps remove foreign matter from the birds' plumage and
helps keep it in good condition. In addition it is probable that in
summer the birds derive enjoyment from the coolness resulting from the
bathing. But birds bathe in cold weather as well as warm and have been
recorded doing so when the temperature of the air was only 10 or so
degrees above zero.
The sparrows and robins that come about a birdbath usually hop right
into the water. They squat down, fluttering their wings, and duck their
heads into the water, splashing and rolling it over their backs. They
may become quite drenched. Then they fly to some perch to sit and preen
and dry their soaked feathers.
But some birds take shower baths. During a shower in late summer I have
seen marsh hawks sitting in the rain with wings spread, apparently
enjoying the wetting the shower gives them, and a buzzard has been
recorded as deliberately flying to an open perch in a rainstorm and
sitting there with its wings spread and sometimes shaking them until
the shower was over, when it flew to a sheltered place.
SPRINKLERS A BOON The artificial showers of lawn sprinklers provide an
opportunity for birds about our gardens to take a shower bath in fine
weather. A robin or a flicker may hop into the shower and squat there
and indulge in bathing antics on the wet grass. Hummingbirds have been
seen to fly into the dense spray of a lawn sprinkler and hover there
for a moment, gradually assuming a vertical position and spreading the
tail, then slowly settling to the ground, and finally "sitting" on the
grass, body erect and tail spread out fanwise, the wings continuing to
vibrate slowly. In a few moments the bird may rise into the air and
repeat the whole performance.
In wet tropical forest it is probable that many of the treetop birds
bathe in the water that collects on the surface of the leaves, pushing
their way through clusters of wet leaves and over wet surfaces of
others until they are as wet as if they had actually been bathing
in water. This is not restricted to tropical birds, for even in our
latitudes towhees have been recorded as bathing thus, and thrushes and
flickers have been seen to rub themselves over the wet grass and then
go through the actions of bathing followed by preening.
BATHING WHILE FLYING Watching swifts or swallows coursing low over the
surface of a lake and occasionally touching it leaves one with the
impression sometimes that the birds are bathing rather than picking up
insect food or drinking. With some other birds the habit of bathing
from the wing is more definite. Sometimes drongo shrikes that are
sitting up on a perch near the edge of a pool will fly out over the
water, drop directly into it with a little splash, and then rise and
fly back to their perch, where they either repeat the performance or
sit and preen their feathers.
POST-PRANDIAL ABLUTIONS Ospreys have been recorded as bathing while
on the wing in a rather striking manner. They have been seen flying
along just above the surface of the water, then descending into it,
adopting a sort of vertical American-eagle attitude while flapping the
wings, then rising a little, flying on, and repeating the process. It
has been suggested that the osprey is washing its feet in this manner
after finishing its meal. One observer makes this still more definite.
He says that the osprey finishes its meal of fish on a perch in a tree
and then flies low over the lake. Dropping both its legs, the osprey
drags them through the water, flapping its wings all the time. Then it
immerses its beak and head into the water while still flying along,
apparently washing off the scales and slime that it had gotten on
itself while making its meal of fish.