Shoebill murder birds don’t even look real to me, but they are. They can only be found in various parts of Africa. Their favorite places to hang out are in dense tropical marshes, swamps, and wetlands. So the chances of you running across this real-life hippogriff in a dark alley are nonexistent. That is comforting.
This bird, also called the shoe-billed stork or whale-headed stork, isn’t really a stork. Since it shares features with storks, pelicans, hamerkop, and herons, it is rather difficult to classify. This large bird—it’s 5 feet tall—looks like it would be right at home living amongst the dinosaurs.
I bet you could smell one approaching though. In order to keep cool in the hot temperatures of Africa, these birds defecate on their legs. Can you say yuck? As this liquid yuckiness runs down their legs, the heat from the blood passing through their legs evaporates their poo and results in cooling them down.
Their plumage is bluish-gray. They have a strong neck, long legs, and broad wings. Its large, very noticeable beak—nine inches long and four inches wide—is shaped like a shoe. The nail-like hook on its end is used for killing prey. I’m guessing once they kill their prey, their beautiful bluish-gray plumage would have blood splattered all over it.
They feed on different types of fish, amphibians, lizards, snakes, rats and even baby crocodiles. Yes, this bird can kill a crocodile! Feeding time is most often at night. This bird can stay still and silent while waiting for its prey to appear. When prey is close, the shoebill moves like lightning. Its deadly beak is used to decapitate or cut its shocked prey, who didn’t even realize this bird was watching it, in half.
Normally a quiet, solitary bird, the shoebill does make a sound when around the nest or greeting another bird that will send chills through you and, if you’re close by, probably cause you to hit the ground in fear of being shot. To make this sound, the shoebill claps its beak together, and it sounds like a machine gun firing. When the young make this sound, it only sounds like hiccups. Their beaks probably aren’t heavy enough yet to make it terrifying.
A female shoebill normally has one to three shoebill murder bird chicks, but usually only one chick survives. Why is that? These chicks take sibling rivalry to a whole new level. The larger chick is already favored by the mother, but that’s not enough. It will torment and pick on its smaller food-and-water deprived brothers and/or sisters until they leave the nest. Sometimes the bully chick grows impatient and just kills the weaker siblings. The surviving shoebill can survive more than 35 years in the wild.
Warning: The below video shows a dark side to a shoebill chick that is heartbreaking. How the mother reacts is even more distressing.
Collective Noun:
There isn’t a definite collective noun for the shoebill, but I think that a murder of shoebills is appropriate for this bird. What do you think?
Writing Prompts:
Now you know where J. K. Rowling got her inspiration for the strange actions of the hippogriff. What creature can you make in one of your stories using this bird as inspiration?
This bird looks prehistoric, so why not have it live among the dinosaurs? What if a group of them were somehow sent to the future? How would they react?
Since this bird lives in Africa, there is no chance of running into one in a dark alley in Kentucky. But in the world of fiction, this can change. In whatever place you choose, have one of your characters run into a shoebill in an unexpected place. What happens?
Create a creature that would be able to defeat the shoebill.
The shoebill stork can be seen in many zoos. What if one day while the zoo is full of visitors, all of the shoebills escape their fenced-in areas and roam freely through the crowds? What happens? Are any people killed?
