Colours of Wildlife: Hadeda Ibis
Created | Updated Mar 8, 2020
Hadeda Ibis
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!"
The Hadeda Ibis, Bostrychia hagedash, is one of Africa's most familiar birds (at least, to the people who live here). It is alternatively called 'Hadada Ibis'. It occurs over most of sub-Saharan Africa, apart from the driest deserts (and inexplicably, from central Zimbabwe and most of Angola), nesting in trees and feeding in forest clearings, grasslands, marshes or mangroves. It has also adapted to human alterations of the environment, and can be seen on farm fields and lawns. In South Africa, it is now a famous city-and-garden bird, sometimes loved, sometimes hated.
Hadedas are about chicken-sized, with fairly long legs, and the long, curved bills typical of the ibises. It mostly looks a fairly dull brownish-grey, but up close it can be seen to have a red upper edge to its bill, and in good light it shows beautiful pink and green iridescence in its wings.
The reason for the hadeda's notoriety is its voice. This goes, more or less, 'wha, wha, wha-haa-haa', and is the origin of its popular name. The problem with this call is its volume. If a hadeda calls out close to you, the loudness is a shock that penetrates into your bones. This often happens if you should suddenly come upon a hadeda, startling it – in which case it will call out explosively as it flies off, nearly giving you a heart attack. Hadedas also call out at dawn, as they prepare to set out for the day, eliciting the ire of would-be-late-sleepers within their earshot. They call out while flying, and also when returning to their roosts at dusk. To those able to tolerate the volume, it actually becomes quite an endearing sound. It is certainly one of the first sounds I noticed in my childhood; Pretoria abounded in hadedas then and still does.
The Hadeda's loud voice may be because of its social system. Hadedas move and feed in flocks, but nest separately in trees, sometimes widely spaced. Calling out in the morning may help separated birds of the same flock to find each other and get together for the day's foraging. The loudness may have found a secondary use, in startling potential predators when given as an alarm call.
Though ibises are often considered wetland birds, hadedas are frequently found far from water. They feed on small critters: insects, spiders, centipedes, earthworms, snails, frogs. In suburban gardens and on farms they should actually be welcomed as natural pest-control agents. Their bills are dextrous, and can be used for picking up small items or for probing deep into the soil.
For hadedas, the breeding season is in the spring to summer. Male and female birds both shows their readiness to breed by a brightening of the red colour of the upper edge of their bills. Like most birds, but unlike many other ibises, they pair up for life. Male and female display to each other to strengthen their bond: they nod their heads, clap their bills, offer each other sticks, intertwine their necks and preen each other. They typically build their nests from sticks, up in trees (or sometimes on telephone poles), 2-12m/7'-40' above ground level. The male gathers the material, while the female does the nest building. When the nest is done, she lays two to four brownish to greenish, blotched and/or streaked eggs. The chicks initially have rather short, straight bills; these lengthen and curve as they grow up. Both parents feed them on regurgitated food. They fledge at the age of about 35 days.
As I've said before in this column, South Africa is mostly a very dry country, about half of it desert or semi-desert. Since Europeans have come here, they've been making modifications to make water more available, like digging wells and boreholes and building dams. There is now much irrigated land in the drier parts. Also towns are provided with water, and many people water their lawns. People have also planted many trees in naturally treeless grassland and desert areas. All of these modifications have favoured the hadedas, and they've been steadily spreading westward from their natural range into the drier parts. They're generally tolerated by humans. They're certainly not endangered at the moment.
