Just a little tingle?

I don't spend all day looking out of the office window at birds - really I don't.  But yesterday afternoon there were two green woodpeckers feeding outside on the lawn and paths for ages. 

Green woodpeckers are common birds here at The Lodge and we hear their yaffling cries often, and see them flying very often too, but I don't remember seeing them feeding where they were yesterday before.  Now and again someone would walk nearby and disturb them but they kept coming back - clearly they were feeding on something and my guess was ants.

I'm pretty sure I was right because this morning, even though it has rained heavily over night, there are quite a few ants running around on the paths and lots of dead winged ants lying around too.

But also the behaviour of two crows suggests that there were ants.  The crows were close to the woodpeckers and feeding too but also, every now and again, one of them would adopt a strange posture - crouching down, spreading its wings and tail on the ground and looking as though it was sun-bathing.

This was almost certainly 'anting' behaviour - crows do it quite a lot.  They encourage ants to run over their feathers.  Is this some form of feather care?  Do the ants kill feather parasites?  Do the ants squirt formic acid around and that has some value?  I don't know - maybe on a sultry summer's afternoon, after the breeding season is over, when there is plenty of food to be found and the living is easy - maybe then crows just seek out experiences that just give them a little tingle.