The Ugliest Bird Alive?

Human beings are aesthetic creatures. The argument has been made that our evolved predisposition to make determinations about beauty is the very thing that separates us from other animals. We make aesthetic judgments every day; about cars, fashion, architecture, books, food, movies, you name it. We also form aesthetic opinions about the living world around us.

Every aspect of the nonhuman world – from trees, to birds, to jellyfish, to fungi, to mammals – evolved into the forms, colors, and tendencies we see today. If we elect to call a hyena ugly, or ill-tempered, or just plain yucky, we are evaluating aspects of the hyena that it has no control over whatsoever. All of this probably seems quite obvious. An animal neither knows nor cares if it is being stood up for. But I wanted to throw it out there before talking about the marabou stork, a creature that is often referred to as the ugliest bird alive.

(Marabou Stork. Showing Off Its Good Side.)

Big Boss Bird

Why exactly does the marabou stork (Leptoptilos crumenifer) get singled out for so much opprobrium? After all, they are a robust bunch of birds, with populations throughout the central and southern regions of the African continent. They are also large, strong animals, able to reach heights of five feet, weights of nearly 20 pounds, and the wingspan of a fully mature adult can stretch over 10 feet.

("Move Along. Nothing to See Here.")

Marabous are visually striking as well, with long gray legs, gray and white plumage, penetrating coffee-colored eyes, and a prominent bill (13 inches in length) that all but announces its origins in the Cretaceous. (To see a marabou stork in flight, is to be instantly reminded of a pterodactyl.) They have a red skin pouch on their necks which they inflate during mating season. And the birds barely make any noise, seeing as they don’t have a voice box (called a syrinx in birds).

So, seen from a distance, marabou storks are arresting, not unpleasant birds to look at. It’s when we start zeroing in on aspects of their appearance and behavior that the storks begin to reveal what many people identify as blemishes.

Up Close and…Yikes

To begin with there are those long, gray legs. And make no mistake marabou legs are very long relative to their body size. But their legs are not, as it happens, naturally gray. Instead they are rather more black, but the marabous turn them gray by crapping on them. When marabou storks become overheated they apply a fresh coating of feces, which prevents their hollow-boned legs from discharging too much body heat. They also, as it happens, pant. Just like dogs. And that might, yes, be somewhat disconcerting.

(Marabou Stork. Panting. Or Perhaps Yodeling.)

Their heads are largely featherless, save for a grumpy-old-uncle fuzz on top and around back. The skin on their noggins is noticeably lumpy and crenellated, as well as being done in patterns of mottled red and black, as if old dark skin is peeling away to reveal the fresh red skin beneath. Set in the middle of all this, marabous have a pair of dark, brownish peepers that, when stared into, suggest that the bird is weighing whether or not it would be a good idea to poke holes in your face with its bill.

And finally, there are those skin pouches. Dangling from the storks’ necks, they are made of elastic red skin and can be inflated on command. Used almost exclusively during mating season, the dermis dirigibles provide information as to a marabou’s individual zip and sizzle. Also, I mentioned earlier that marabou storks lack a syrinx, so it’s lucky for them that the skin pouches connect to their left nostrils (that’s how they get inflated), which allows a stork to make a sort of flatulent croaking sound. Like listening to CSPAN.

("Hey, babe. Check Out My Neck Sack.")

Eat Your Heart Out. And Your Children.

Lots of times when people declare an animal ugly, the first thing they point towards is the creature’s feeding habits. In the case of marabou storks, people point towards their feeding habits, then stop pointing while they run around waving their arms in the air and screaming. Marabou storks are opportunistic predators and scavengers. Doesn’t much matter where it comes from, if it contains animal protein marabou storks will eat it.

(Thinking About Dinner.)

Among the many dinner options available to marabou storks, the least appealing to the birds appears to be actually hunting for it. It’s not that they aren’t capable hunters. They are actually quite adept. However, the temperatures in their home ranges can rise to brain-baking levels, and it simply isn’t worth expending lots of energy hunting, especially when it is so difficult to cool down afterwards and they might not catch anything anyway.

When they do resort to working for a living, they target rodents and other small mammals, plus reptiles and small birds. By small, we are talking for the most part about babies. Many an ecotourist has watched in bug-eyed horror as a marabou stork rampages through a colony of nesting flamingos, inhaling fuzzy fledglings like a greedy toddler eating Cheerios.

The storks also get exited about grass-fire season, when they take to the air, gliding up and down the approaching fire line, plucking up animal hors d’oeuvres while said hors d’oeuvres are otherwise occupied running like hell away from the blaze. If hunting were always so easy, marabous would probably do it more often.

(Carrion On A Good Time)

But the least exhausting method of obtaining the daily vittles is to wait around in a state of dozy relaxation until a meal presents itself, most often in the form of an animal that is already dead. Marabou storks eat carrion, a trait which has earned them the nom de plumage of “undertaker bird.” The sense of smell among these birds is absolutely top-of-the-line, right up there with vultures, hyenas, and other notable scavengers. It is rumored that they can pick up a whiff of some decomposing something from well over 10 miles away, at which time the entire marabou flock heads out for the stinky smorgasbord.

As the human world has pushed deeper and deeper into the nonhuman landscape, marabou storks have adapted with consummate sangfroid. They have identified and capitalized on a new source of food that is both easy to get at and tasty: Garbage. We produce the stuff literally by the ton, and while a big portion of what we throw out is, to us, no longer nourishing or actually revolting, marabou storks can’t seem to get enough of it. They are today regular fixtures in Africa’s garbage dumps. If not exactly welcome visitors, the birds are tolerated, mostly because they are only very rarely antagonistic toward humans, and also because they keep local rodent populations at bay.

(In the Dumps)

And So?

Are marabou storks the ugliest birds in the world? For myself, I don’t think they are at all ugly. No, I find them fascinating and perfectly gorgeous. They are marvelously adapted evolutionary poems, and if they were to suddenly vanish, a world without them would be an uglier world.

Peace.