Marabou Stork
by Donna Proctor
Title
Marabou Stork
Artist
Donna Proctor
Medium
Photograph - Fine Art Photography
Description
A preening African Marabou stork.
Information from the Smithsonian:
To the casual observer the massive Marabou Stork with its balding, scabby head and pendulous pink air sac may appear to be one of the ugliest creatures in the world. If this same observer were to notice the Marabou's fondness for carrion and its habit of squirting excrement onto its own legs he or she would probably consider the original opinion to be justified. It takes a real bird lover to see past all of this stork's bizarre adornments to recognize the scruffy charm underneath.
A large male Marabou Stork, standing up to 1.5 m tall and weighing nearly 9 kg, is one of the largest flying birds in the world. Their wingspan approaches 2.9 m. Females are generally smaller.
The most distinctive feature of the Marabou is the nearly bald, spotted, scab-encrusted head, with its huge meat-cleaver bill. Dark, wispy hair-like feathers are scattered sparsely across the head, neck, and nape. The bare skin of the head and neck is predominantly pink to magenta in color, with spots of darker pigmentation concentrating around the face and extending down into the upper portion of the horn-colored bill. In breeding season the back of the neck turns a beautiful pale blue-green, and the spots on the face and forehead become encrusted with dried blood.
Two large inflatable subcutaneous air sacs complete the catalog of the Marabou’s peculiar features. One bright pink medium-sized bulbous sac protrudes from the feathers of the upper back. A larger pendulous flesh-colored gular sac hangs below the throat when inflated. The deflated gular sac can be concealed behind an incongruously attractive ruff of white neck feathers.
The Marabou’s back and wings are dark slate-gray with a touch of green iridescence on the wings and pale blue iridescence on the back. The feathers of the neck ruff, chest and belly are white. The scientific name Leptoptilos, Lepto = fine and ptilo = feather, refers to the long, pure-white, elegant, fluffy undertail-coverts that were once in great demand by the millinery trade.
Their eyes are grayish-brown. The skin of the legs and feet is naturally dark gray to black but appears to be much lighter due to the encrustation of excrement.
Juvenile storks are darker in plumage than the breeding adults. They have more extensive feathering about the head and neck. Their bare parts are less brightly pigmented. Bills are generally shorter and may take up to two years to reach their full adult length.
Uploaded
March 4th, 2009
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