#Shoebill stork flying skin#
#Shoebill stork flying full#

Despite its size, the bill is sensitive and is used in a hunting technique called groping or tactolocation.

With its massive bill and elastic stomach, it can swallow a 600-gram piece of meat. It will hang around dumps, slaughterhouses and fishing villages looking for scraps. When the vultures have torn up a carcass, the marabou steals in to pirate what it can. As a scavenger, it soars over open country searching out vultures that lead it to carrion. Leptoptilos crumeniferus needs to find from 700 to 1000 grams of food every day. The Marabou stork has been known to live as long as 25 years. One in four fledglings survives long enough to breed. One egg in three makes it to the fledgling stage. Marabous start breeding at the age of four, but don’t breed every year and success is fairly low. Beyond day 130, independence is achieved. Flights beyond the tree begin around days 110 to 115. A month later, around day 95, it takes short flights within the tree. The ability to hover over the nest takes until day 66 when adult plumage is complete. Around day 17, the young bird starts to flap its wings.

#Shoebill stork flying full#

By day 66, full adult plumage is achieved. From days 35 to 50, black contour feathers grow in (the outer layer of feathers that give a bird it characteristic shape). Growth has been rapid to this point, but slows as more energy goes into feather development. The nestling uses a begging display kneeling on its tarsi, wings partially open, and nodding their head.įrom days 8 to 35, white down thickens over the entire body except in those upper areas that remain bare into adulthood. Smaller vertebrates are also provided whole. To feed the young, the parents regurgitate fish into the nest, supplying the calcium needed in this period of rapid growth. They do provide protection from rain, cold and sun. After that, they stay at the nest or nearby until the chicks are almost full-grown. Parents share in the brooding for the first 10 days.

#Shoebill stork flying skin#

At birth, hatchlings weigh about 70 grams and have wrinkled, pinkish skin sparsely feathered with pale-grey down. Two or three eggs are laid at one to three-day intervals and incubated for 29 to 31 days. Interspersed with nest building are displays of bill rattling and frequent copulation. A food source needs to be within reasonable flying distance, approximately 50 kilometres. The male gathers most of the sticks for a nest 10 to 30 metres off the ground, lining it with twigs and green leaves. Whenever one of the pair returns to the nest, an “up-down display” is performed: wings are held away from the sides and the head is pumped. If she’s persistent enough, the male will accept her and she’ll inflate her pouch, again a sign of dominance to other marabous in the vicinity. She demonstrates this with a “balancing display”, her body horizontal, neck extended and bowed downward, wings spread. A female, seeking a mate, will be submissive. Its gular sac is inflated as a courtship display and a show of dominance and hostility to intruders. As breeding time nears, the male establishes a territory. In the rest of the tropics, the dry season is favoured because, with water levels lower, fish and frogs are easier to catch. In the equatorial zone, breeding may take place at any time because of the variability of rainfall. The face and forehead become blackish red. The white undertail coverts elongate into a fluffy flamboyancy (lepto translates from Greek as fine ptilos as feather).

The breeding season is the height of this stork’s attractiveness. Juveniles have wooly down on their head, black plumage and a smaller bill. The legs and feet appear to be white because of excrement. This contrasts with the thick, downy, off-white feathering of the underparts. The wings are glossed with green while the back and mantle are glossed with blue. The wings, back and tail are a slaty grey. A ladder of white bands forms on the edges of the cloak, the greater secondary coverts. This bird is also referred to as the “undertaker bird”, the name originates from its cloaked appearance when viewed from behind as well as its hunched head, tufts of white hair on the nape, and long, skinny legs. The outsized bill ranges from horn-colored to greenish yellow. The neck and gular sac are pink or magenta. A few sparse hairlike feathers are scattered over the crown and neck. It is usually hidden by the white ruff that encircles much of the lower neck. At the base of the nape there is another air sac, crimson in colour, with a diameter of 10 to 15 cm that can inflate to seven cm high. They also dot the gular sac that hangs down anywhere from 25 to 35 cm when inflated. The marabou stork’s orange-red head has black spots that are concentrated towards the forehead and base of the bill.