Africa Wild

Kruger 2008 – 2011

Saddle-billed Stork/Jabiru d'Afrique

+ Openbill Stork

+ Hamerkop

• Genus Ephippiorhynchus
o Black-necked Stork, (Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus)
o Saddle-billed Stork, (Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis)

• Genus Jabiru
o Jabiru, (Jabiru mycteria)

strange... in French Saddle-billed Stork is : Jabiru d'Afrique

and seems to be 2 different Genus

and marabout (with a "t")... in French is a black person who make predictions and other healer

Saddle-billed Stork with Juvenile.





Saddle-billed Stork with "Rockodile".

Now that Toko has done all the work, I can post a pic......believe it or not, but the two flying "spots" are saddle-billed storks



This one shows better

Saddle-billed Stork





Juveniles

Saddle-billed storks

Marabou Stork

The Marabou Stork is a huge 1.5 metre tall bird with a 2.6 metre wing span.
In fact, it is so large and heavy that its leg and toe bones are hollow to reduce weight during flight.

It has a long, dangling throat sac which is not associated with the ingestion of food; instead it is air-filled and probably used for courtship or breathing.
The naked 18-inch inflatable pink sac is particularly conspicuous during the breeding season.
It connects directly to the left nostril and acts as a resonator allowing the bird to produce a guttural croaking.

While usually silent, the Marabou Stork will also emit a sound caused by beak clacking if it feels threatened.

The pink head and neck is naked of feathers, with the rest of the plumage being black and white, and commencing with a white ruff at the base of the neck. Males and females are very alike with the female being slightly smaller

Like the Turkey Vulture, the Marabou Stork defecates upon its legs and feet.
It is known that the Turkey Vulture has strong antiseptic properties in their whitewash and indeed this is also the case with the Marabou stork, however their reasons for carrying out this act are different. Quite simply, it helps assist in regulating body temperature -- and also gives the false appearance that the birds have lovely white legs.

Like many birds the Marabou Stork also pants when it becomes hot, again to lower its body temperature.





These are particularly lazy birds and spend much of their time standing motionless, though once they take flight they are very elegant, using thermal up-draughts to provide the needed lift.
Not a good short-distance flyer.
Like other storks they fly with their especially long legs trailing behind, but unlike their cousins they keep their neck tucked well in and bent into a flattened S; this allows the weight of the heavy beak to be taken on the shoulders.



Life span in the wild is unknown, however zoo birds have lived as long as 20 years.

Immature birds have a woolly covering on their heads and do not gain the black in their plumage until about three-years-old. By four-years the full plumage will have grown in.

The scientific binomial for the Marabou stork is Leptoptilos crumeniferus; Leptoptilos from the Greek for “thin plumes”; and crumeniferus from the Latin for a “leather pouch”, presumably referring to the bulbous air sac. Thus a bird with thin plumes and a leather pouch.

Hlane, Swaziland

Pongola, KZN

Marabou.