This required a walk across the river from Shoebill Island to meet the car. However, as usual, Brighton would try to arrange a car to pick us up and take us to the area the following day. But this was in a hunting area that we could not enter! The sinking feeling again!Ĭlearly, our situation was not good. However, he knew of one nest that still had a young stork. We learnt that our information from Kasanka was true: most Shoebills had indeed moved north and it would be difficult to see them. Luckily the bush mail system had worked and not only he was there, waiting for us, but there was also a photocopy of our booking indicating that we had paid in advance to avoid any possible problems! Meeting with Brighton and planning our next move. So, I thought, “finding our trophy bird would be rather impossible” but kept these negative thoughts to myself while trying to find a Plan B such as visiting a new area, watching other water birds and the herds of Black Lechwe that inhabit the wetlands. Nests would now be empty as most fledglings had matured and moved off. While at Kasanka we had learnt that -as we suspected- we were too late to have a real chance of finding Shoebill storks as the water was low and the birds had moved north where there was still water and food. In fact we only met two of them returning from the wetlands. However, judging by the enthusiasm with which the children in particular greeted us and by the rather dangerous evasive maneuvers taken by cyclists at our approach, cars with tourists were not common. This dirt track, surprisingly for me, traversed well-populated areas. After only a few kilometres of asphalt we took the turning for the Bangweulu Wetlands at Chitambo. We had a hint of what expected us: our navigators showed a journey of 120km to Nsobe to take 7.5 hours! The going will be slow so again so, on 8 October, we left early again. The brown area is the Bangweulu wetlands management area.

© 2016 Tune In to Nature.The red dots show Nkondo and Nsobe further north. XC320901 ambient sounds recorded by James Bradley, Kenyan Swamp setting.īirdNote’s theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler. I’m Mary McCann.īird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Shoebills are notably less numerous than pelicans, though, with only 8,000 surviving in the wild. But DNA analysis showed that it’s more closely related to pelicans - another group of birds whose oversized beaks are truly awe-inspiring. The Shoebill’s physical resemblance to the stork gave it its early name, the Whale-headed Stork.

Which Shoebills hunt in the shallows, often standing completely motionless before they strike. The edges are sharp enough to behead its prey, which include catfish with hard bony heads as well as lungfish, snakes, and even baby crocodiles. But although the Shoebill looks like it walked right out of a cartoon, its beak is no joke. So named because that comically large bill is, yellow-orange, and shaped like an oversized Dutch wooden shoe. Meet the Shoebill, a bird unknown to science until the 19th Century, and the only living member of its family.

But instead of the stork’s long, tapered bill, substitute a prodigious, stout bill that’s hooked at the tip - and that gives this bird its name. Picture a massive, blue-gray stork, standing up to five feet tall on long, gray legs. Deep in the dense, remote swamps of Central Africa lives one of the most peculiar looking of all birds.

Shoebill stork sounds