Anointing its feathers with this caustic bath helps the redwing control parasites, so anting is hygienic, but birds can become so addicted to it that when ants are scarce they'll use orange peels, mothballs, cigarette ash, walnut husks, lemon juice, bombardier beetles and even beakfuls of smoke.
32.
I'm open to the possibility that my memory is playing tricks on me and that I've mixed up something like a bombardier beetle ( I looked that up first, thinking that it may have been what I was remembering ) with Pokemon, or dragons-or that I saw it in a dream, or whatever.
