,
9 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
There’s a very strange (uncredited) video of crow making the rounds on reddit. Here’s the deal. First, this is a large-billed crow, which is why the face is looking a little out of proportion.
Second, this bird is not missing its legs and propping itself up with its wings, that would be physically impossible. Also, not that it’s relevant to the answer, but a crow without legs couldn’t fly, because it couldn’t generate any lift. So legless crow is a dead crow.
What it’s actually doing is sunning itself. When birds sun they drop their wings and cock their tails. At the right angle that could obscure the legs and tail making it look like they’re missing.
Usually the mouth is open and the body is closer to the ground, making the behavior more obvious, but perhaps the videographer caught it in a moment of transition.
In any case sunning like this is a common behavior among birds. Sometimes it’s about warming up but a lot of times you’ll see them do it when it’s hot out. In these cases it’s about feather care. Sun exposure can reduce feather degrading bacteria and mites.
Here’s some doodles 
Another possibility for the strange posture via fellow crow researcher @dlslager
FYI, there’s a few people out there pretending to be the OP, but as far as I can tell this is the original.
