A hamerkop collecting nesting material. Uganda.
From Wikipedia: The hamerkop (Scopus umbretta), is a medium-sized wading bird. It is the only living species in the genus Scopus and the family Scopidae. The shape of its head with a long bill and crest at the back is reminiscent of a hammer, which has given this species its name. It is found in Africa, Madagascar to Arabia, living in a wide variety of wetlands, including estuaries, lakesides, fish ponds, riverbanks and rocky coasts. The hamerkop, which is a sedentary bird that often show local movements, is not globally threatened and is locally abundant in Africa and Madagascar. The hamerkop is a medium-sized waterbird, standing 56 cm (22 in) high and weighing 470 g (17 oz), although the subspecies S. u. minor is smaller. Its plumage is a drab brown with purple iridescence on the back; S. u. minor is darker. The tail is faintly barred with darker brown. The sexes are alike and fledglings resembled adults.[9] The bill is long, 80 to 85 mm (– in), and slightly hooked at the end. It resembles the bill of a shoebill, and is quite compressed and thin, particularly at the lower half of the bottom mandible. The bill is brown in young birds but has become black by the time a bird fledges. The neck and legs are proportionately shorter than those of similar looking Ciconiiformes. The bare parts of the legs are black and the legs are feathered only to the upper part of the tibia. The hamerkop has, for unknown reasons, partially webbed feet. The middle toe is comb-like (pectinated) like a heron's. Its tail is short and its wings are big, wide, and round-tipped; it soars well, although it does so less than the shoebill or storks. When it does so, it stretches its neck forward like a stork or ibis, but when it flaps, it coils its neck back something like a heron. Its gait when walking is jerky and rapid, with its head and neck moving back and forth with each steps. It may hold its wings out when running for extra hamerkop occurs in Africa south of the Sahara
Size: 4288px × 2848px
Location: Fort Portal, Western, Uganda
Photo credit: © Bert de Ruiter / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: None
Keywords: africa, african, bert, bird, build, collect, de, hamerkop, horizontal, landscape, material, mud, nest, nesting, ruiter, scopus, sedentary, twigs, umbretta, waterbird
