Colours of Wildlife: African Spoonbill
Created | Updated Sep 11, 2016
African Spoonbill
Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"
This is something new I've tried – a mini-painting! The original of this portrait is only 2.5" x 3.5", about 6.4 cm x 9 cm (and in watercolour). So you see it much enlarged here (unless you're using a tiny screen). This is part of a trade with a friend who lives in Slovenia – she will send me one of her mini-paintings in turn.
The Bird with the Kitchen Utensil for a Face
This mini-painting is of an African Spoonbill, Platalea alba. (I also include a pencil action-sketch of it in the process of feeding.) This remarkable bird is not rare, I see it from time to time. It occurs around wetlands of various kinds, needing medium-shallow water to feed. While mostly feeding in fresh water, it does occasionally venture into brackish and salt water, such as in estuaries and lagoons. It's about the size of a chicken, but with somewhat longer legs, neck, and bill of course. Its toes are slightly webbed, but it doesn't swim much. That expanded bill is an amazing adaptation: the broad tip has, inside, myriads of fine sensory nerves. As it wades, it sweeps its bill from side to side through the water, held slightly open; the submerged, sensitive tip can feel when there's a little living critter in there, and it will quickly grab it. The broadened bill tip gives it more of a 'grabbing area'. Spoonbill food is mostly small swimming things that live close to the water surface. It will on occasion snatch up and gulp down a frog.
Although spoonbills look very unique, they are actually closely related to birds that look very different – ibises. They're genetically so close, that ibis/spoonbill hybrids have been recorded. So, spoonbills should be thought of as ibises, slightly modified to have straighter bills with broadened tips. They're not as vocal as many ibis species are, at most uttering hoarse croaking and grunting calls and clattering their bills. Spoonbills occur in warm regions of the world: this one all over sub-Saharan Africa and in Madagascar; another one in Eurasia (also migrating to some parts of Africa), one kind in Central, South, and southern-North America, one in Eastern Asia, and two in Australia. Spoonbills have mainly white plumage, the American one tinged with pink and red. The African spoonbill has a pure white body, tail and wings, but red legs and a bare, red face. It has a short crest on the rear of its head, but rarely raises it. In most of Africa, it is the only spoonbill species, and unmistakable when seen well.
In Southern Africa, spoonbills are rarely resident in any specific area. They move around a lot, according to where and when good rains fall. It is mostly seen singly or in pairs, but sometimes flocks of up to a hundred or more birds form. Spoonbills are strange in that they breed outside of the wet season – in summer-rainfall areas they breed mostly in the winter, and in winter-rainfall areas they breed in the spring and summer. They breed in the same 'mixed heronries' as other wetland birds like herons, egrets, cormorants and ibises, but at a time when few other birds are breeding. Of course, there still needs to be open water close by so that they can feed. They apparently practise seasonal monogamy – each season a female will pair up with a different male (or sometimes with the same one – there is no law). She builds a platform-nest of reeds and sticks with a hollow on top, where she lays her two to five eggs. Both male and female incubate the eggs. They typically hatch one by one rather than all together. Newly hatched spoonbill chicks are naked and blind; their bills are short. The bills lengthen as they grow up, and the tips broaden last of all. It seems that starvation is the main cause of death in the chicks. But spoonbills do well enough, and in Southern Africa probably benefit from the many human-created lakes and ponds.
