Cat among the pigeons

by David Muirhead

  African penguins chose to live along the temperate shores of southern Africa, understandably leaving their close cousins to enjoy the icy and inhospitable wastes of Antarctica, and other grim southerly addresses. They made a home for themselves on the numerous offshore islands dotting the South African and Namibian coasts. The islands offered safety from most predators and they were all within relatively easy reach of rich fishing grounds.

  Even at these relatively benign latitudes it’s important to get out of the African sun, particularly when raising a family. A bonus of the islands was that many had accumulated a thick coating of guano, soft enough to excavate a burrow, and absorbent enough to deal with the rain when it fell. If you keep your mind firmly distracted from the origin of this unique encrustation, guano makes a very cosy home.

  It also makes a fantastic fertiliser. At almost the same moment as the last pair of great auks were being scientifically despatched in the northern hemisphere, entrepreneurs discovered the vast deposits of guano in southern Africa – over 20 metres deep on some islands – and set about removing them. When the frenzy was finally over, some 40 years on, the penguins that remained found themselves left with bare rock, their eggs exposed to the gulls and the sun.

  Unfortunately the gulls weren’t the only egg collectors. In one of those inexplicable waves that trigger fads and fashions in human populations, penguin eggs became a highly popular item in South African kitchens at the start of the 20th century. Lawrence Green, the peripatetic author, had many fine egg recipes, and was happy to share them with his readers. To be fair, like one of the tearful characters in Lewis Carroll’s poem The Walrus and the Carpenter, in later life he lamented the seemingly inevitable demise of the parent birds.

  About 2 million African penguins are estimated to have existed at the start of the 20th century; today there are fewer than two hundred thousand, and the numbers are still dropping. Their chronically reduced ranks make them ever more vulnerable as a species to both natural and man-made threats – and the latter keep remorselessly piling up. Aging and rusty ships rounding the Cape routinely leak oil from their bunkers, and occasionally come apart altogether, dumping their entire noxious cargo into the sea; overfishing has led to a drastic reduction in fish stocks; and plastic and other pollutants in the sea set all kinds of lethal traps.

  African penguins were once in a prime position to send gloating postcards back to their relatives in the snowy wastes of Antarctica, bragging about the sunshine and the good life, but they must surely now be consumed by doubts. If so, they show no sign of it. Smartly attired and as determined as ever, it’s business as usual for the plucky survivors.

  Penguins hunt by sight and each busy day begins bright and early, especially if there are chicks to be fed. Comically clumsy on land, in the sea penguins are more aqua dynamic than the most bragged-about submarine, and infinitely more manoeuvrable. They travel to fishing grounds in hunting parties of up to 60 birds, swimming 3 metres below the surface, on average, and popping up every 20 seconds or so to take a breath. A daily round trip can involve distances of 30 to 40 kilometres, and much longer than that if fish are hard to find.

  It’s an arduous commute by any standards, not made any easier by the thugs lining the route. The deadbeats who threaten late-night travellers in the dark recesses of the London or New York underground are purring pussy cats compared with the seals, sharks and orcas that make it their sharp-toothed business to waylay commuting penguins.

  Given this history and their apparent stoicism in the face of epic human greed, it is not surprising that the inoffensive little birds have become totems for the conservation movement. Wobbling about on land, dressed in their coat and tails and bustling about with domestic chores, they are reminiscent of miniature butlers; and like any good butler, they are much more respectable than us.

  * * *

  WILD DOG

  The San revered the wild dog as the world’s best hunter, and incorporated the animal into their mythology. From one story we learn that the moon set a pack of wild dogs to chase a hare that had disagreed with its intention to reincarnate all living things. Why the hare was such a spoilsport, and whether the dogs ever succeeded in catching it, is not ours to know.

  Some elements of this story recall ‘The Wild Hunt’, an ancient legend belonging to the tribes of northern Europe. Frequently reworked and retold, it is now so worn as to constitute an incomprehensible puzzle. The streamlined version involves a ghostly horde of horsemen and spectral hounds traversing a moonlit sky in mad pursuit of, well, nothing in particular in most cases. A Cornish version of the story provides us with a name for the intimidating canine component of this scary group: the Devil’s dandy dogs.

  ‘The Devil’s dog’ is an unfortunate sobriquet still sometimes applied to African wild dogs. It would probably have been the description of choice for the British big-game hunter RCF Maugham. Writing in 1914, he described wild dogs as an abomination, and fervently hoped for their complete extermination.

  Despite the quasi-religious intensity of feeling, the main source of Mr Maugham’s wrath and righteous indignation probably had more to do with the dogs’ atrocious table manners than to any links they may have had with the Devil. His profession involved shooting animals, big and small, and then sticking their heads up on the wall, so it’s unlikely that he had a queasy stomach. But to see wild dogs tear a living impala limb from limb, without even using serviettes, was simply beyond the pale.

  To deflect opprobrium, today many folk prefer to call them African painted dogs; they point out that there is ample evidence that their prey sometimes dies a quicker death than animals that fall victim to lions and leopards. These upstanding cat carnivores have the claws and dental equipment to kill by various means, most usually strangulation; but unless they get it exactly right, this can be quite a protracted process. The cats’ methods are certainly less gory but often far from instantaneous.

  Nevertheless, until well into the 20th century most people tended to share Mr Maugham’s views and wild dogs were routinely exterminated wherever they were found. Other factors, including loss of habitat and susceptibility to diseases such as distemper and rabies, weighed in to put the dogs firmly on the road to extinction. They are now mainly confined to the largest game reserves in East and southern Africa, and are less frequently seen than their big-cat competitors.

  To follow their preferred lifestyle, a pack of wild dogs needs a big space to move around in. Their ranges can extend up to a whopping 2,000 square kilometres, though they’re usually less than half of that. On bright nights they will sometimes make use of the light of the moon, but wild dogs hunt by sight and are hence mainly diurnal. Day or night, as the San undoubtedly observed, their kill rate, estimated at 85 per cent of targeted animals, is much more impressive than any posted by the big cats. Down at the bottom of the class, cheetahs, in particular, look like prime candidates for extra lessons. In consequence, where game is relatively abundant the dogs are able to work on a flexitime basis and spend the hottest parts of the day collapsed in a sociable heap, amiably sharing the shade and the ever-present flies.

  Be it business or pleasure, wild dogs seem to get along so well, and exude such a footloose and fancy-free vibe, that it took naturalists a long while to work out that there is, in fact, a formal hierarchy. Each pack has an alpha pair, and they are the only two who are supposed to breed. Every now and again, in larger packs, a lower-ranking female admits to having an illicit affair by dumping a set of pups in everyone’s lap. When this happens, the alpha male suddenly remembers he left something important at the waterhole, and everyone else holds their breath and waits to see what the alpha female will do. She might kill the pups, adopt them, or leave the birth mother to nurse them in peace, less usually the first of these three options.

  Nursing is no small task because an average litter is enormous by carnivore standards, sometimes numbering up to 20 pups. There’s a sombre reason for this bounty: wild dogs may live a merry life by bushveld s
tandards, but it’s usually brutally short. Very few dogs live beyond five years, falling victim to lions, snares, disease and in fights for dominance, or rare battles with rival packs. The result is that each pack has a high turnover of individuals and its coherence and integrity rests in the here and now.

  The dogs themselves spend no time moping about tomorrow and, despite superficial appearances, are very well organised. A pack member, slow on the hunt, may be delegated to look after pups at the den, or to perform the functions of a medic, continually licking the wounds of an injured colleague to help stave off infection. At the scene of a kill, some members are charged with keeping watch and, as needs be, every pack member coughs up lunch for pups at the den. Unlike lions at a carcass, adult wild dogs immediately make way for juveniles too young to have participated in the hunt.

  None of these skills and character traits matches what the Devil generally looks for in an employee. Even with their elegant long legs and fetching tricolour coats, it’s highly unlikely that they’d be able to secure a position with the diabolical dandy dogs; but Mr Maugham’s CV? Well, that’s another story.

  * * *

  HADEDA

  Ibises had the run of the place in Ancient Egypt. Nobody minded where they went or what they got up to. They could stroll through the inner sanctum of temples, the Pharaoh’s private quarters or anywhere else they fancied. They could even poop on the gleaming apex of the Great Pyramid and no one would make a fuss. The reason for this unusual tolerance was that causing the death of a sacred ibis, even by accident, was a capital offence.

  When Egyptian sages constructed their strange and complicated cosmology, they decided that the ibis was an earthly manifestation of the deity Thoth. Representations of the god took the form of a human body with the head of an ibis. This may have looked utterly ridiculous but only the gods could excuse someone who burst out laughing, and they wouldn’t have been amused.

  Thoth himself was certainly no laughing matter, having basically put the universe together. He was the true and original author of everything anyone could ever conceive. He also officiated at the weighing of souls ceremony and eternal damnation awaited anyone whose soul, when placed on the celestial scales, weighed more than a feather.

  All this is perhaps worth bearing in mind if you feel inclined to throw rocks at a flock of hadedas when they start calling from the top of a tree outside your bedroom window first thing in the morning. They may be a little smaller, less dramatic and generally not as posh as the sacred ibis, but the two are close cousins and can sometimes be found sharing a lawn or seashore within gossiping distance of each other. It’s perhaps best not to become one of their topics of conversation.

  The hadeda’s name is onomatopoeic, derived from its raucous and distinctive voice. People prefer ‘hadeda’ to the species’ scientific name, Bostrychia hagedash, because nobody wants to sound inebriated by pronouncing that mouthful.

  The birds are widely distributed in sub-Saharan Africa, and their numbers and range have both increased substantially since the 1960s, particularly in South Africa. Part of the reason is that humans have modified the environment in ways that admirably suit the birds’ lifestyle. Ibises feed by repeatedly poking their long, curved beaks into soft earth in search of worms, spiders, insects and insect larvae. So farmlands, golf courses, parks and large suburban gardens, all well irrigated and usually within easy reach of mature tall trees, are heaven-sent. They repay the hospitality by getting rid of snails and other pestilential insects, notably subterranean species that like to make a mess of lawns.

  A bonus for the birds in the suburbs is that many folk keep pampered and overfed pooches as pets. A hadeda isn’t interested in becoming a dog’s next best friend, of course, but it is interested in the contents of its food bowl. They can become quite possessive of a particular bowl, chasing away other birds that are tempted to muscle in on the seemingly inexhaustible supply of nutritionally balanced free meals. Whether this unusual diet puts a spring in their step or a gloss on their coats has not been determined.

  Tall trees are an important part of the suburban mix because they enable the birds to get safely away from trouble, including, no doubt, irate dogs that have finally woken up to what the birds have been up to. Hadedas forage in pairs or small groups during the day, but as night approaches they often congregate in large flocks and roost in the same large dormitory tree night after night, often year after year, if they’re not disturbed and the local pickings are good. Their arrival and departure is invariably accompanied by one of the loudest rackets known in the avian world.

  Although they’re gregarious for most of the year, when spring comes around, and it’s time to raise a family, the birds like privacy. Unlike the sacred ibis, which nests in communes, hadedas prefer to find their own tree, ideally on the banks of a river or a stream. In urban environments they might choose a man-made structure, provided they can find a suitable spot between 3 and 6 metres above ground.

  As part of his mating display, the male bird shows bits and pieces of vegetation to the female, presumably as evidence of his prowess in construction. Duly impressed, she then helps him build an untidy platform of sticks, padded with a thin layer of lichens and grass. The nest wouldn’t win any prizes for quality or comfort, let alone engineering expertise. In fact, it is usually such a shoddy piece of work that eggs or newborn chicks often topple out and are lost. It’s not the end of the world because the female can lay up to six eggs. The big surprise is that the birds pair for life, and often proudly return to the same ramshackle nest the following year. The Ancient Egyptians, renowned for their precision building, would no doubt be aghast.

  * * *

  PYTHON

  Pythons need no introduction, least of all if you find yourself inadvertently sharing a toilet with one in the African bush – or even in a bathroom in England. On such embarrassing occasions the best policy is to quickly pull up your pants, mutter an apology and retreat – or, better still, run screaming to your mother. This option was understandably selected by a young boy in the English county of Essex when he discovered a small python peering up at him from the bowl of the family loo.

  Other than its obvious function, a stylish ceramic bowl filled with cool water is just the thing for a python to wrap around on a hot summer’s day or night, and having a flexible backbone with 133 vertebrae certainly helps in getting comfortable. If you’re below a certain size, it’s even possible to plunge in and explore the linkages in the neighbourhood plumbing, as the slippery little individual in the toilet in Essex was presumably doing. Scuba diving equipment is unnecessary because they can hold their breath under water for a very long time – up to an hour if necessary.

  Pythons like to keep their body temperature just below 32 degrees centigrade, so when they start to feel too hot they seek shade, go underground, slide into a rock crevice or into the nearest river or dam. Heading for a WC is not usually an option, but in an increasingly crowded and careless world, where exotic pets are not uncommon, it can happen more often than people think.

  An African python that managed to escape into the suburbs of Essex would struggle to survive the vagaries of an English summer, let alone a bitter winter. If it somehow did, and fortuitously bumped into a fellow escapee of the opposite sex, breeding successfully would prove virtually impossible. Python eggs need to be kept warm, above 28 degrees centigrade, to give them any chance of hatching. Even in Africa, brooding southern African pythons often need to bask in the sun, allowing their body temperature to rise to dangerous levels so that they can then curl around their eggs and transfer the warmth. That’s impossible on a soggy weekend in Southend-on-Sea.

  There are, however, more benign places where escaped or released pythons have prospered, including one of the world’s leading depositories of unwanted exotic fauna: the Florida Everglades. African pythons are hugely outnumbered there by Burmese pythons, but it’s still early days. The Burmese have settled in wonderfully, and gotten to know the indigenous neighbour
s so well that they frequently have them for lunch. Life in the Everglades, for the moment at least, is actually an improvement on their natural home in Southeast Asia, where things haven’t been going at all well for pythons lately. One of the reasons is that well over 100,000 have been yanked out of their natural habitat by dealers in recent years, and shipped off to the USA as pets.

  Not that they’re bragging about it, but African rock pythons can grow a little bigger than their Burmese cousins, capable of surpassing a length of 5 metres, if they live long enough. The biggest weigh in the vicinity of 60 kilograms, at least between meals. These behemoths can gulp down an animal as big as an impala or a wild dog. After such a huge meal the snake is, of course, suddenly a great deal heavier, and it can take a couple of weeks to get back to sensible proportions. In the immediate aftermath, the rotund snake is itself vulnerable, not just to fat jokes, but also to predators with a taste for stuffed snake, with a surprise side dish of marinated impala. While the meal is being digested, the snake understandably tries to stay well hidden in a burrow or dense undergrowth.

  Being uniquely equipped to pig out doesn’t necessarily mean that every meal has to consist of a jaw-stretching mountain of meat. Everyone does their best when the man from the Guinness Book of Records is watching, but even the biggest pythons sometimes choose fairly modest portions – a dassie, a duck, or even, for the particularly daring, a prickly porcupine. On the whole, pythons have a preference for warm-blooded prey but they’re certainly not averse to making selections from the cold buffet: monitor lizards, young crocodiles, and fish when available.