This edited article about birds originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 861 published on 15 July 1978.
A pair of long, ungainly legs, hanging down beneath enormous wings, touch down on the outskirts of an African village. A marauding lion killed by a villager’s spear lies dead upon the ground. Before the villagers could make use of its meat, vultures had swooped out of the sky and descended upon the carcase.
But now a newcomer has arrived to share in the feast – a Marabou stork. Marabous are often to be seen eating in the company of vultures, and this occasion is no exception. The Marabou stalks proudly towards the crowd, pecking its way with its long bill through the struggling vultures until it reaches the carcase which it devours eagerly and greedily.
A feast of lion in the company of vultures is not an uncommon event in the marabou’s life. But when there is no carrion to be enjoyed, it makes do with frogs, small birds and fish. It has an appetite which is not easily satisfied because it is one of the largest members of the stork family, and lives in flocks along the banks of rivers in Central Africa.
Although they are graceful in the air, the marabou walk rather stiffly along the ground, rather like soldiers on parade. For this reason, they are also known as adjutant storks. Two kinds are distinguished by the presence of a large pouch which hangs down on the front of the throat.
All kinds are characterised by a large body, thick and naked neck, by the head being either bare or thinly clad with down, and by the enormous size of the beak. This is very thick, four-sided and somewhat wedge-shaped, with a sharp point.
The whole plumage is rough and untidy-looking. There are species of marabou or adjutant storks in Africa and India. The African species is known as “father of the leather bottle”, probably because of its large pouch. In India and Burma, the genus is represented by the great Indian adjutant; while the Javan adjutant is a smaller Indo-Malay species, distinguished by the absence of the pouch in the throat.
These birds have an ancestry which goes back to prehistoric times. Remains of extinct adjutants occur in the Pliocene rocks of the north of India and in the Miocene deposits of France.
In India, the adjutants are summer visitors, arriving towards the close of the hot weather, about the end of April or May, and remaining through the rainy season until October. As a rule they breed in Burma and the Malay countries, a favourite nesting place being some lofty scarped limestone rocks called the Nidong Hills on the Attaran River to the south-east of Moulmein in Burma. A few nests have, however, been observed in India.
Because of their use as scavengers, these birds are of value in Indian cities. By devouring the carrion they help to destroy a potential source of disease. Everything seems to suit their appetite, from the carcase of a large animal to a dead cat, or from small birds to frogs and fish.
Adjutants generally assembly in large flocks, although in the neighbourhood of towns solitary birds may often be seen. They may be either stalking about alone or standing with outspread wings to dry their plumage, or perched on one leg while asleep on some building or tree.
Their flight, although heavy and flapping, is vigorous and powerful. They frequently soar to immense heights in the air, from which they descend to join the vultures at their feasts.
In the Nidong Hills, the adjutants nest in vast numbers in November and December. And in January, the parents may be seen feeding their young on the topmost pinnacles of their almost inaccessible rocks. There, life begins anew for one of the stork family’s most remarkable members.
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