This Bird Isn’t Just Strange — It’s a Warning (2 of 3)
Most people would have backed away. But Tony, frozen and fascinated, kept shooting.
Later, he’d learn the behavior had a name — anting — something ornithologists rarely witness, let alone photograph. Theories say birds do it to coat themselves in ant secretions, using the formic acid as a natural insecticide or feather cleanser. But watching it happen in real time was nothing like reading about it in a nature book.
Because this bird didn’t just tolerate the ants — it seemed to invite them. It rolled slowly, exposing every inch of its ghostly white belly, letting them crawl into its open beak. Its eyes half-closed, not in relaxation, but in something closer to rapture.
Tony swore the park around him grew quieter. The breeze died. Even the distant hum of traffic faded until there was nothing but the rustle of dry grass and the faint hiss of ant bodies against feathers.
And then, without warning, the bird stopped. It stood, shook itself violently, sending a rain of ants to the dirt, and fixed Tony with a single, unblinking stare. That moment — sharp, cold, endless — lodged itself in his mind.
He left the park shaken, his camera heavy with proof, but unsure if he wanted anyone to see it.
A week later, Tony mentioned the incident at a local café. The man behind the counter stopped mid-pour. Another customer set down her cup without drinking. And one by one, the room fell silent.
“You saw it?” the barista finally asked, voice low.
No one would explain what it was. But an older woman at the corner table muttered something about “the pale crow” and how it “comes before the bad winters.” Someone else mentioned a string of dead songbirds found in the park last year. And then the conversation dissolved into meaningless chatter, as if the subject had never come up.
Tony still has the photographs. He’s shown them to a handful of people, but most look away before the last frame. That final shot — the one where the bird stands amid the scattered ants, head tilted toward the lens — leaves viewers unsettled in a way they can’t explain.
The crow hasn’t been seen again.
