We got some much-needed rain recently and it was interesting to see how various birds reacted to it. This House Finch wins the prize for best shelter location. He sat on our downspout for more than 15 minutes.
This American Goldfinch kept looking up at the sky. I read that some birds do this to make their profile more straight up and down so less water hits their feathers.
Other birds continued their business-as-usual activity at the feeders. They probably needed the energy source and rain was not going to stop them.
But my favorite was this Mourning Dove. I wasn’t able to catch him in action (my camera kept focusing on the raindrops instead!), but during a particularly heavy downpour he kept leaning to one side and lifting his wing in the air—almost tipping over. Then he’d do it on the other side.
I wasn’t sure if he was trying to bathe, or stay balanced while being pelted by the heavy raindrops? Or maybe he was doing what the goldfinch was doing—trying to reduce the amount of surface area for raindrops to strike.
Whatever the reason, I couldn’t help but think his partner bird was saying, “Stop being so weird, dude, you’re embarrassing both of us!”
And my free advice to both of them would be to not to sit out in the open on telephone wires during a thunderstorm if they didn’t want to get wet!