May be she’s related to Harry Potter’s Hippogriff, Buckbeak…?
For some time I’ve cherished a photo I saw set in wartime of a lady keeping a Shoebill stork in her bathroom to protect it. Grand bird. Grand mess!
But my interest jumped when I learnt that last summer one of these so called Dinosaur birds has moved into Exmoor Zoo, near Barnstaple in Devon.
The reason for her arrival? To patiently wait for a husband through conservation breeding to literally save the species. And she really is an extraordinary beauty that you should visit.
“Abou”, our Devon Shoebill is the only one in the UK. In fact there are only around 10 living in captivity in Europe. This amazing bird is at massive threat of extinction- her breed’s natural habitat is dying out through climate changes and habitat destruction.
To all the thousands of Harry Potter fans, the shoebill stork is the closest model of Harry Potter’s hippogriff, Buckbeak, that lives with Hagrid in JK Rowling’s books. Harry’s hippogriff was a half eagle, half horse hybrid, and adopted the same regal and proud bowing behaviour.
The Shoebill, of course, is not a hippogriff, but the commonality is the poetic courtship dance ritual the shoebill makes and the courteous bow that visitors must make to greet her. She is over 1m tall, with wide wingspan and has a wonderful prehistoric look with a large, unusual shoe shaped bill, which gives her the name .
Without her mate right now, Abou’s elaborate courtship display of bowing and spreading her wings, is currently just for the keepers.
Its quite something to have a Shoebill stork in a UK Zoo , let alone one in Devon.
Derek Gibson, the Zoo’s curator , explained that the species is down to less than 5000 birds in the wild. The birds’ natural habitat is swamp lands of Eastern Africa, where they hunt for papyrus, lung fish and small vertebrates – places like Uganda and Tanzania . They prefer poorly oxygenated water so fish come to the surface, and beds of floating vegetation to stand or sit on. Such is the pressure of people and populations that these wonderful birds’ habitat is being destroyed – there are fires, draining swamp land, and people stealing eggs for food or sale.
Abou is one lucky lady to be part of Exmoor Zoo’s conservation work.
Shoebill storks go slow! Except may be the final strike to catch fish or food with the pointed tip to their beaks; their wings beat slowly, they fly short distances, preferring to glide, and everything they do is slow, graceful and deliberate. Similarly they spend a lot of time just standing still. They slowly stalk their prey and prefer to feed alone – 20m from their nearest friend.
These birds also nest in isolated pair, building a large floating platform and nest miles from other pairs , where they hatch their young.
The happy couple generally lay 1 to 3 eggs. Incubation lasts around 30 days and both birds
share the parenting. Whilst they may hatch several eggs, most are spare back ups and the pair only tend to successfully raise one young.
The Courtship ritual is really something to capture if we are ever in luck – the normally silent birds bow gracefully, may be extend and shake their wings and clatter their bills like machine gun fire!
Check them out !
1 May 2023
Shoebill
Shoebill range