Australian Magpie “anting” or what?

By Birding-Aus, on October 24th, 2020

What I sent last night appears to have not gone through yet. Maybe best just to call it sunning when that is what it is and leave the word anting to when there are ants. Easy. But they may be connected. This sunning behaviour (and certainly not just magpies) often has the birds in a sort of trance like behaviour. But then there are other things that will do that to a bird. “hypnotise chooks”. For example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i6QIuNS8j8

Philip

From: Philip Veerman [What I sent last night appears to have not gone through yet. Maybe best just to call it sunning when that is what it is and leave the word anting to when there are ants. Easy. But they may be connected. This sunning behaviour (and certainly not just magpies) often has the birds in a sort of trance like behaviour. But then there are other things that will do that to a bird. “hypnotise chooks”. For example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i6QIuNS8j8

Philip

From: Philip Veerman [

From: Birding-Aus [

From: Birding-Aus [penny@pennydb.org

> wrote:

Sunning?

——————–

Penny Brockman

On Wed, 21 Oct 2020, at 5:28 PM, marann671@bigpond.com wrote:

For years I’ve been watching magpies in Blackheath, regardless of the temperature, mild or red-hot, lying down in a sort of trance-like state. But they are alert. Someone somewhere mentioned that they are “anting”. Any published papers and evidence available on what they are actually doing?

Thanks

David Jackson

Birding-Aus

Australian Magpie “anting” or what?

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