“Big-5, big-5!” requested my guests on arrival, and the Big-5
we certainly did see. But it wasn’t a member of the Big-5 that proved to be the
star of their safari, but rather a bizarrely behaved female ostrich. Ostriches
are not prolific in the Sabi Sands, contrast in fact, but for some time now we
have been enjoying regular sightings of a female Ostrich who appears to have adventured
her way to us from somewhere farther afield in Kruger National Park.
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| Approaching our vehicle with great interest |
Being the tallest and heaviest bird in the world, the
Ostrich certainly is a marvel, but what is odd, is that this gregarious,
flock-living bird is here on her own. Odder still is her behaviour, which seems
to be getting stranger by the day. It started with her approaching and later
chasing game drive vehicles, but more recently her behaviour seems somewhat “courtship”
like.
Male ostriches perform
an interesting courtship display called ‘kantling’, whereby they squat on the
ground and sway from side to side whilst fanning and quivering their
outstretched wings. At this signal, if the female likes what she see’s, she too
squats and flaps her wings backward, while bending her neck forward and making
clapping noises with her beak. I’m rather embarrassed to admit that this was
extremely similar behaviour to what we witnessed. The female ostrich approached
our vehicle, squatted, bent her neck forward and even made the clapping sound
with her beak! This is a bit confusing, because last time I checked I’m quite
sure that apart from a feather duster, our green land-rover’s don’t resemble a
male ostrich in any way!
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| Our female ostrich displaying courtship behaviour |
A researcher at heart, I did some reading on the subject,
and found that indeed behaviour such as this has been observed in ostriches
before, albeit in farmed ostriches in England. According to “British Poultry
Science”, it was found that 70% of the female ostriches observed in a
particular farm reliably “hit on” the humans when they were around! So perhaps
in the absence of any males or female friends, our lonely African ostrich is
just a bit confused and looking for love.
A short word on love though, and that is, she must be more
careful of her choice of partner! Africa is a dangerous place for birds,
especially one that shares the open savannah with the fastest land animal on
earth – the cheetah. Even with her two-toe adaption for speed, she would not be
able to out-run a hungry cheetah, a known major predator of the ostrich. Why
then, she has chosen a few times to join us for a date with the cheetah,
standing less than 20m away from the enemy fathoms believe! My only explanation
is that perhaps she doesn’t recognise the risk…and luckily for her, it seems
they haven’t seen her in the food light yet either.
For
an ostrich who’s name is derived from the Greek “strouthos”, referring to the (false)
belief that they bury their heads in sand, it seems this ostrich really does
seem to buck all typical ostrich traits and seems to have exactly that- her
head in the buried in the sand.
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| The Cheetah and the Ostrich....an unlikely pair! |
