1/3/2024 0 Comments African shoebill storksThe Shoebill spends its time absolutely motionless on the edge of papyrus swamps, suddenly dropping face-first into the water to grasp a fish. A massive gray bird with a staring yellow eye, its broad bill sports a vicious hooked tip used for catching its favorite prey of lungfish, catfish and watersnakes. Previously known as the Whale-headed Stork, its scientific name of Balaeniceps rex translates as “King Whalehead”, in reference to its giant whale or shoe-shaped head and bill. This colossal bird is now placed in its own family Balaenicipitidae and it forms an ancient link between storks and pelicans. The elegant White Stork is the species that fable has decided is the deliverer of human babies, a belief that dates back to ancient northern European folklore.Īnd now to our honorary stork, the Shoebill. This southern breeding behavior is also undertaken by European Bee-eater and no doubt the genetic isolation of these local breeders will eventually lead to the evolution of new species of stork and bee-eater over time – just as many other species have evolved in a similar way, for example Forest and Mountain Buzzards, which evolved from Steppe Buzzards that stopped migrating and bred in Africa. Satellite tracking has shown that these individuals migrate northwards through South and into East Africa during the winter months. An aberrant small population has decided that it’s far too much of an effort to migrate all that way back north to breed, and have since 1933 started breeding just north of Cape Town. They are also attracted by fires and can gather in thousands. In the northern winter, the bulk of the European and North African population migrate down into Africa, as far as South Africa, where large numbers frequent fields where they hunt for insects and rodents. It breeds on chimneys, roofs, buildings and trees throughout Europe, parts of Asia and even North Africa. The White Stork is the most strictly migrant of all our storks. Many hung around until they died weeks, months and sometimes even a few years later, and the reasons for this irruption and the birds’ source remains a mystery. In 2010, a remarkable and previously unrecorded phenomenon occurred when thousands upon thousands of African Openbills appeared from nowhere and spread throughout South Africa, even to the far southern tip of the continent and remote Karoo semi-desert regions where they had never been recorded before. The African Openbill also has a similar Africa-wide distribution (barring most of South and North Africa) as the previous four species and partakes long distance movements (usually triggered by rainfall) through the continent and to Madagascar. They nest in large colonies, often mixed with numerous other waterbird species. The African Openbill is one of Africa’s smallest storks and rather slight in build. Further to the east, Asian Openbill displays the same special feature but is mostly a white plumaged bird. This gap is used to maneuver this species’ favorite food, large aquatic snails, into a position where they can be shucked from their shells. The African Openbill is an all dark stork named for a curious gap in its closed bill, formed by bizarrely shaped upper and lower mandibles that have evolved to separate in the center. The Saddle-billed Stork has a similar Africa-wide distribution as the Marabou. Their name is taken from the yellow “saddle” atop the bare red skin at the base of their bill. They display subtle sexual dimorphism, the male having dark eyes, dangling yellow wattles and more black in the wing, whereas the female has bright yellow eyes, no wattle and incredibly white wings that are absolutely striking in flight. Sometimes they have to protect their catches from piratic African Fish Eagles who swoop down as soon as they see that a Saddle-bill has successfully caught a fish. Saddle-bills are more strictly restricted to wetland environments where they are adept at catching their own fish with their enormous upturned bills. Only slightly shorter, but more elegantly built than the Marabou, the Saddle-billed also has a sister species in Asia, the Black-necked Stork. Second largest, and at the other end of the attractiveness scale, is the stunning Saddle-billed Stork.
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