While hubby and I were drinking our morning coffee and chatting, we saw the most amazing thing, a thing you only read about in books. It was a crow playing in the snow on the neighbour's roof. He did a little slide on his bum feathers with his wings awkwardly outstretched for support. Then he walked his way back up to the peak and after a few blurry steps ( as though he weren't quite sure how to get his body in position) he rolled a few somersaults down the roof. Fantastic.
It reminds me of Bernd Heinrich's ravens in "Mind of a Raven" (if you haven't read it, you definitely should treat yourself) wherein his ravens do snow bathing and playing, not necessarily to get clean, but just to have a good time:
"... but the most popular activity going was snow-bathing. In its simplest form, this involved skooching down and flapping their wings, just like bathing in water. But there was more. They also slid forward on their breast and belly feathers, being assisted not only by wing-flapping and leg-flailing, but also by gravity. Hodui twice rolled completely around sideways down a short bank of snow. goliath, Fuzz and Lefty did only partial rolls." Mind Of The Raven. Pg 284.