Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE STORK-LIKE BIRDS

The Shoe-bill Habitat

According to Mr. John Petherick, who was one of the first to observe these remarkable birds in their native haunts, they are”seen in clusters of from a pair to perhaps one hundred together, mostly in the water, and when disturbed will fly low over its surface, and settle at no great distance; but if frightened and fired at, they rise in flocks high up in the air, and, after hovering and wheeling around, will settle on the highest trees, and as long as their disturbers are near will not return to the water. Their roosting place at night is, to the best of my belief, on the ground.

Their food principally is fish and water-snakes, which they have been seen by my men to catch and devour. They will also feed on the intestines of dead animals, the carcasses of which they easily rip open with the strong hook of the upper bill.

The breeding time of the Balaeniceps is in the rainy season during the months of July and August, and the spot chosen is in the reeds or high grass immediately on the water's edge, or on some small elevated and dry spots entirely surrounded by water.

The birds before laying scrape a hole in the earth, in which, without any lining of grass or feathers, the female deposits her eggs. As many as a dozen eggs have been found in the same nest.”Mr. Petheriok succeeded in hatching some of the eggs under fowls and reared the young, sending them alive to England.

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