2009/12/08

The Comb-crested Jacana (Irediparra gallinacea) or Rotstirn-Blatthühnchen

I guess when it comes to the ratio of body size compared to the length of toes this little fellow is the winner in the avian world (see picture 2), most likely also of all other vertebrates too. The huge feet and claws enable them to walk on floating vegetation of tropical freshwater wetlands of northern and eastern Australia and they even build their flimsy nests on floating leaves of the white water lily (Seerose). It’s the males, like the one you can see here that I photographed in the Kakadu National Park, which incubate the eggs and take care of the hatchlings in the crock infested waters. Fortunately these birds need no shoes, so these fellows have one worry less in their busy life, because there are two things that are very hard to get in Australia – decent shoes and sunglasses for Gentlemen. You can get almost everything else like Italian designer suits or French cheese or Japanese newspapers, you name it, but it’s hard to get those two essential items in appropriate quality. It’s not that the younger Australian male seems to worry about it, because they love to sport a bizarre combination of clown like upwards pointed shoes together with big women’s sunglasses when dressing up. The dictate of this absurd fashion leaves anybody else with only one option – to import these things from Europe. However the male Jacana has no such problems, he is more concerned to find the seeds and aquatic insects he feeds on, a task we don’t envy him for. 

Next week: The Crested pigeon or the ultimate idea to prettify Venice.