Sura ya Kumi - Ndege Wala Msoga wa Serengeti

Chapter Ten - The Flying Scavengers of the Serengeti

Scavengers are vitally important in Nature's ecosystem, and vultures fill this role better than most. A scavenger's job is to finish off all those left-overs, no matter how disgusting, rancid, fetid, infected, bloody and smelly it may be. And do they get any thanks?

Not only do they have to eat nature's rubbish, but they also put up with being some of the ugliest creatures in all creation.

Because they go shoving their heads into places where others fear to tread, they have, during their evolution, lost the feathers on their head and upper neck, saving them from having to take hourly showers, but giving them a look that only a mother can love.

And even they don't...

Over the millennia, they have perfected their silly walk

Even when flying they insist on hunching their backs to better give them that 'Igor' look.

"Wait Master! It looks dangerous!... You go first"

Frankenstein, "What a filthy job"

Igor, "Could be worse"
Frankenstein,"How?"
Igor, "Could be raining"
(it starts to pour)

Nature has a wide range of 'sociability'. We've already seen how leopards and cheetahs are not social at all. They usually stay on their own, shunning all other company. If you see them with others of their own species, they will be young offspring, older siblings, or, well, they fight. It amazes me how they ever get around to reproducing.

At the other extreme of the social spectrum are the wildebeest as we saw in the migration. Millions together without war.

Vultures are somewhere in the middle. Technically they are social animals and can be seen together in large numbers. But they squabble and fight all the bloody time!

It's just like being on Facebook.

They have an enormous wing-span, rivalling the albatross. But instead of using it to glide gracefully around the world, this one is trying to be scary...

Although vultures make up the majority of scavengers on the plains of the Serengeti, there is one other bird of note; the Marabou stork.

They, too, have perfected their good looks by loosing the feathers on their head. Not quite as successfully though.

Although an important scavenger, they can also catch their own food. This one has caught something.

but the question is, what on earth is it going to do with it?

This catfish is enormous. Surely impossible to swallow whole?

It spent a good 20 minutes trying to do so.

Failing again and again because the poor fish was wriggling like crazy.

Eventually, it got it the right way round, and swallowed it whole!

How on earth can a bird swallow something of that size? The answer is important. Not just for them, but for French cuisine.

Birds, like reptiles, have no gag reflex. If they did have, they would never be able to swallow something of this size. Please bear this in mind when you hear animal rights activists saying that gavaging (force feeding by tube) is cruel in birds. They feel nothing. To them, it's like fast food.

Hmm... on the other hand...good point...

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There are more species of bird in the Serengeti than you can shake a stick at. In the next chapter, I'll be shaking my stick at a few more:

Sura ya Kumi na Moja - Ndege Nyingine wa Serengeti

Chapter Eleven - Other Birds of the Serengeti