In the early warmth of the morning sun, I watched this Western Wood Pewee sunning and preening. It spent most of the time with its back to the sun with its tail feathers spread out and its wings slightly open and away from its body. After a five minutes or so of sunning, it would have a session of preening that lasted approximately five minutes. Sometimes when it preened, it would flip around and have its other side exposed to the sun.
Occasionally an irresistible insect would fly by and it would swoop out, catch it, return to the perch, and continue preening. To my surprise, this lasted for around an hour.
I wrote about this sunning and preening last year, observing it in Robins and Steller’s Jays (Sunning, Feb. 28, 2024): This maintenance behavior isn’t completely understood but seems to be largely associated with removing parasites, such as lice, living on their skin and feathers. Studies have shown that exposing the feathers to direct sunlight can allow them to heat up enough to kill some of the lice. In addition, lice might move to escape the heat possibly making it easier to clear them away during preening, which often follows a session of basking in the sun.
Happy Birding!
