All birds have feathers. In fact, birds are the only animals with feathers! Their unique and elegant plumage provides camouflage, warmth, and makes flight possible.
For birds, feathers aren’t just important; they are downright vital. Without plumage, a bird just won’t survive for long!
With that in mind, it’s no surprise that birds spend a lot of time caring for their feathers. To maintain their top performance, birds do a behavior known as “preening.”
What exactly is preening? How do birds do it, and what happens if they don’t?
What Is Preening?
Have you ever seen a bird fluffing its feathers and then using its beak to rearrange them? If not, just keep watching the birds perched near your backyard feeder. Eventually, one or more of those House Sparrows and chickadees will start to preen themselves.
This important feather maintenance is typically a complete and thorough process. It starts with the bird reaching down and stretching to take preen oil from a small gland on its lower back, just above its tail.
It then uses its beak to spread that oil on its feathers, mostly by nibbling them. The bird nibbles each feather of its body, including its wings and tail. Birds also use their beaks to stroke their feathers, and penguins use their heads to wipe preen oil on their plumage.
One preening challenge that birds face is reaching the feathers on their heads. They solve it by putting preen oil on their feet and then scratching their heads. Several types of birds even have a comb-like structure on their toes to facilitate head preening!
In a sense, when birds preen, we could say that they are grooming themselves. However, there’s a lot more to preening than looking their best!
Why Do Birds Preen Themselves?
Birds preen their feathers for several important reasons. First and foremost, they have to keep their feathers up to spec. for top-flight performance. Birds don’t just fly to get from one place to another. Often, they literally fly for their lives!
To escape predators, birds need to move at a moment’s notice. They have to take flight immediately and may need to keep flying faster than they usually do. Worn and misplaced feathers can slow birds down just enough for a Sharp-shinned Hawk to grasp them with lethal talons.
Daily preening could give small birds the edge they need to escape. On the other side of the coin, proper preening might help the hawk catch its prey!
Preening also helps feathers stay water-resistant and keeps them in their proper place. Although the oil doesn’t waterproof them all on its own, it does help water bead off, especially on preened plumage.
As a bird preens, it also removes bird lice, other parasites, and dirt. Not to mention, studies have shown that preen oil has certain types of helpful bacteria that keep harmful bacteria off a bird’s feathers!
It’s worth mentioning that some species also add some color to their feathers with preen oil.
Learning To Preen
Preening is so important for birds; they are born with an instinct to preen. Baby birds can start preening themselves as soon as they have feathers. However, their parents preen them first.
Just as they preen their own feathers, parent birds put preen oil on their beaks and place it on the new feathers of their babies.
Although the feathers of nestlings are still growing and developing, their parents may preen them by nibbling each feather.
Some birds also preen their babies when they only have down. Ducks and geese do this to help them float and have water-resistant plumage.
When nestlings fledge, they use their own uropygial gland to preen their own feathers. However, they don’t quite know how to preen as well as their adult counterparts. They learn the fine details by watching their parents and other birds in action.
For birds with long necks, this could mean learning that adults access their preening glands by simply extending their long necks over their backs. For other birds, it could mean learning to scratch-preen their heads by extending a leg above or below a wing (although they might also do that by instinct!).
Do All Birds Have A Preen Gland?
While the majority of birds do have a preen (or uropygial) gland, many species from nine families of birds lack one! Those birds include flightless ground birds like kiwis, ostriches, cassowaries, emus, and rheas.
It’s easy to assume that they lack a preen gland because they don’t fly and thus don’t need to maintain their feathers as much. Their feathers are also much more hair-like than the feathers of other birds. They don’t need to be contoured and linked together for aerodynamic reasons and work just fine for their terrestrial, flightless ways.
The bustards are another type of terrestrial bird that lacks a preen gland. These big, heavy birds can fly but aren’t as agile or graceful on the wing as other birds. It’s a somewhat similar situation for the Mesites; a small avian family restricted to Madagascar.
They lack preen glands, too, rarely fly, and stay on the ground but aren’t nearly as heavy as bustards. Other, more arboreal birds lacking preen glands are Amazon genus parrots, woodpeckers, pigeons and doves, and frogmouths.
All of these birds take more dust baths and/or have special powder-down feathers that help remove dirt and parasites.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do birds preen themselves?
Birds preen themselves by taking some preen oil from their uropygial gland and then using their beak and legs to spread the oil on their feathers.
Do birds pull out feathers when preening?
No, birds don’t pull out feathers when preening.
What happens if a bird doesn’t preen?
If a bird doesn’t preen, its feathers become dirty, less flexible, and brittle. It won’t fly as well, won’t shed water as well, and the bird might stay as warm as birds that preen.