They were once upon a time a sacred symbol in Egypt.
Reckoned to be some of the neatest flyers in the bird world.
This is what Wikipedia had to say about them, and at the source below you can read and see much more about them.
The African sacred ibis (Threskiornis aethiopicus) is a species of ibis, a wading bird of the family Threskiornithidae. It is native to much of Africa, as well as small parts of Iraq, Iran and Kuwait.It is especially known for its role in Ancient Egyptian religion, where it was linked to the god Thoth. The species is currently extirpated from Egypt.
For those who do not know the word "extirpated", it means that there are no more in Egypt. Instead, they are now all over the African continent, and the ones here are called African Sacred Ibis. They have lost their royalty, and in some countries are now called bin-scratchers. So, from royalty to paupers:)
But still, they are neat flyers, as here below you can see the partner of the one in the first picture.
Now let me show you the formation that they form for a long flight.
The four came over when we thought that it would rain, and I bet that the birds also thought that it would rain.
And another bunch came over, and there were seven of them.
But the joke that the wind played on us, was that it didn't rain at all and the sky was busy to be cleared again.
The birds were still sorting out the formation.
And finally, they got the V-formation perfect.
I always count the numbers in the formations, and in this case, there were 24 birds in the formation. On another occasion, just after sunset, I got 26 birds in a formation that I will show you in another post. I have no idea about their destination, as once they are over the mountains they could land anywhere. What I do know is, in this case, they came from the sea and as they like water they must have landed somewhere up north at a safe place for them to sleep. Usually in high trees, at some dam.
A good thing about these birds, is that they are not as loud as their cousins that are called Hadeda Ibis. The Hadedas are not really liked by the people, as they scream people awake at 4:30am in the morning.
Such is life.
I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the story.
Photos by Zac Smith. All-Rights-Reserved.
Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.
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