Instead they tend to rest both their feet and tarsi on the ground to stand on and to walk with. They are highly vocal birds, especially during the breeding season and around the colony. Their calls being described as a twittering, whirring, churring and creaking. Calls include flight calls, distress calls and a variety of antagonistic calls used in nest burrow defence. Digging a nest burrow, especially if the soil is stony can be energetically expensive work for a small bird and existing burrows are therefore important possessions.
Birds digging burrows have severely warn bills and claws.
Fights involving attempted usurpation of a nest owner, even one incubating an egg are not an unusual and can become quite physical, normally the possessor remain in possession. These pages are here free for you to use, I would like to keep them that way, however making and running this site, and the other sites I am currently making or have made, on Birds, Mammals, Insects and Fish and Bacteria costs money. There are simple ways you can help. By using the search engines here you make me 2 or 3 cents a time, by buying goods from Discovery Store you also help. Why not use the special Earthlife Web search page for all your future searches.