WITH MY OWN EYES

AFRICAN SPOONBILL BATTLE, KRUGER PARK

Our family visited the Kruger Park in November 2018. Early one morning, we drove from Skukuza to Lower Sabie along the well-known river road, the H4-1. We pulled over at Sunset Dam near Lower Sabie. It’s one of our favourite spots for a coffee stop because there are always animals and birds around.

I was carrying my Canon EOS 7D with a Canon

100 – 400 mm lens. We arrived at about 8.30 am and parked near the dead tree. To the right, an African spoonbill was calmly feeding in the shallows. There were only three vehicles at the dam and we had an unobstructed view.

After a few minutes, a second spoonbill arrived. The two spoonbills immediately attacked each other 1, 2, 3 , bumping into and pecking at each other. I was surprised by the aggression. They didn’t hold back: One bird even clamped its bill around the other’s leg. There was a yellow-billed stork on the far side of the dam, and it kept a close eye on the spoonbills. At one point, it flew over and landed right between them 4 , as if trying to make peace! The spoonbills were startled and stared at each other with open bills. Both then flew to the dead tree in the dam and continued their fight

5, 6 .

Five minutes later, one of the spoonbills suddenly flew off and the winner stayed behind on the branch, with only a single feather out of place 7 .

We read up about spoonbills after the incident – they’re described as “shy” and they generally get along with other bird species. They only get irritable during the breeding season from June to September. This incident happened after the breeding season, which makes it even more mysterious.

What could have caused this shy bird to act with so much aggression towards a member of its own species?

THE EXPERT SAYS

There are many factors that might have played a role – I can only speculate about the cause of the aggression.

Adéle is correct about spoonbills sometimes showing aggression during the breeding season, but this is mostly observed among individuals in a breeding colony. Aggression can also occur between a breeding pair and an individual, but again this is unlikely considering that the breeding season had come to an end.

They might be shy and docile, but that’s not to say there’s never intra-specific competition among spoonbills. (Intra-specific competition is competition between individuals of the same species.) One of the spoonbills might have caught conspicuous prey – a big fish, for example – or it was feeding in an area where larger prey is found, and the other spoonbill saw an opportunity to steal some breakfast. This kind of competition occurs mainly where prey is extremely localised. It might also explain why the yellow-billed stork participated in the interaction.