Anting

I never knew either about such a word for such 
        a thing as this sight captured on camera: a crow
                  sitting quite still, letting an undisciplined parade
of ants crawl up and down its feathers and all over 
        its body. Audubon supposedly observed it in turkeys
                  as early as the 1830s— No one knows for sure 
if in symbiosis, or if the birds were simply tolerating the insect 
        picnic in order to have a ready supply of snacks on hand.  
                 In one picture there's a crow in an almost Sphinx-
like pose; in another, a crow bends over like a dark  
        tent  in some desert, not knowng if the arrival 
                 of these tiny nomads is a blessing or a curse.