Did you know? Marabou stork May 14 2008
Beautiful they are not, and we humans find some of their habits less than attractive too. Yet these birds have to be respected for their survival skills.
On very hot days marabou storks (Leptoptilos crumeniferus) pass urine onto their legs. It is assumed that as this warm urine evaporates, it has a cooling effect on the bird. The throat pouch is a social showing-off device, but may also help regulate the bird’s temperature.
Marabou storks have been known to get a running start before stabbing flamingos in the back with their strong bills. Once the flamingo is injured, the stork drowns it and rips it apart before eating its flesh.
Though they are mostly scavengers, marabou storks sometimes wash their food before eating it. Parent birds feed their nestlings by regurgitating food into the nest. They also regurgitate water.
You can watch the storks making the most of the food to be found in a drying-up pool in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, in the Earth-Touch clip, Birds feast at fish trap. Another clip shows them perched in trees at sunset: Storks watch giraffe go by.
The greater flamingo (Phoenicopterus ruber) can be seen in the clip, Flamingos trawl lagoon for food, filmed in Namibia.
Image © Earth-Touch 2008
Source:
Hockey, PAR, Dean, WRJ and Ryan, PG 2006, Roberts Birds of Southern Africa, VIIth Ed, The Trustees of the Jon Voelcker Bird Book Fund, Cape Town
Enjoy this post? Share it with others.
Weekly Highlights
