Hi Don and Tony. This is a fairly common behavior in birds when it gets
really hot. I have found elf owls and other small birds in the sonoran
desert of arizona sitting in the sand at the base of large trees trying to
find the coolest site to dump heat to. There is a short paper on the topic
at SORA-link below. There are also accounts of larks using lizard burrows
in the Arabian Desert to cool off and get out of the sun.
http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/search.php
The Use of Thermal Refugia by Two Small Desert
Birds<http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Condor/files/issues/v098n02/p0424-p0428.pdf>
(Condor: Vol. 98, No. 2, March-April, 1996)
On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 8:53 PM, Tony Russell <> wrote:
> Hi Don, I've seen Pied Honeyeaters doing the same thing just down the
> road from Yumbarra where you got the SCPs. It was also a very hot day
> peaking at 48C.
>
> Tony.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
> On Behalf Of Donald Kimball
> Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 2:17 PM
> To:
> Subject: [Birding-Aus] Birds and overheating - ie. how does a
> scarletchested parrot deal with 46 deg
>
>
> While having the joy of watching a male scarlet chested parrot almost at
> my feet last week I noted a few things:
>
> First at 46 deg Celcius even a heat tolerant neophema like the SCP can
> only handle so much. At the risk of this sounding a bit like a fairy
> tale I was literally standing watching honey eaters in an area I had
> seen the SCP days before when I caught a flutter of colorful motion.
> It was a male SCP which flew in and landed about 5 m from me. Its body
> feathers were tight against its body and its wings held way out from its
> body as well. It seemed to squat for a bit then skittered toward the
> direction of the base of a mulga. Amazingly a 2nd male SCP flew in out
> of nowhere and proceeded to battle with the first male. They made a
> variety of high pitched neophema like calls and then after flying at
> each other with open beaks and skittering about chasing each other a
> victor was declared (I couldnt tell who won to be honest)
>
> The victor then proceeded to a shady spot in the sand and lay there for
> a minute. Then it proceeded to scratch and kick sand with its feet with
> its breast sitting in the sand. Over the next few hours that I watched,
> the bird gradually dug itself a deep enough pit all I could see was its
> bright blue head, green back and tail. Its gorgeous scarlet chest and
> the rest of the body hidden. It stayed like this for about 3 hours only
> stopping occasionally to rotate its body and kick out more sand as if it
> was regulating the very temperature of the sand.
>
> When it first began all of this I thought it was dust bathing. As best
> as I can determine it was acting like an overheated canine on a hot day
> and trying to dig where it was cool to avoid the heat.
>
> If anyone else has more knowledge about this behavior in neohpemas I
> would be delighted to hear.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Don Kimball
>
>
>
>
>
>
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