Heavy Fall Rains Cause Odd Foraging Behavior

centrarchid

Crossing the Road
14 Years
Sep 19, 2009
27,548
22,227
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Holts Summit, Missouri
Over last week or so we experienced a lot of rain. A small number of birds kept in yard have adopted a behavior that appears to be in response to changes in soil moisture. They are digging lots of holes to the point water stands in them. In the course of day a cock in a 4' x 5' pen will denude about 2/3 of the ground. He resumes process as soon as I move pen and gets good crop fill even before I apply feed. Watching and hens do similar digging later as they free-ranged I bust him in the act again. They going after extremely abundant beetles grubs. I do not know it they are June Beetle or Japanese Beetle but they are very abundant.
 
Very soon hawking will begin for craneflies. Yesterday evening a hen switched briefly into hawking mode before going back after the buried beetle grubs. I think the birds have to guestimate which approach is most cost effective. Currently the digging is very easy.
 

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