preen

But it’s tricky to maintain a balance between eliciting sympathy for the central duo and making sport of them, in all their preening garishness.

Many were motionless, while others perched on rocks preening their feathers.

Maybe it’s happiest tucked into a cast-iron skillet, going golden and jammy while the showier types preen in their baskets.

He was preening for the press, warming to another of his vicious, incoherent jeremiads when his Canadian host suggested he join the others in a bit of work.

That last is a sly point that’s been an enduring comic take of Hitler’s artistic preening.