Shoebill – Balaenicipitadae Page Updated

Shoebill by Dan

Shoebill by Dan

We went to the Lowry Park Zoo this week and were able to get some photos of the Shoebill. What an interesting bird. I was amazed at how large they really are. My shots were through a fence, but Keith’s video was taken in a swamp.

Shoebills are in the Balaenicipitadae Family of the Pelicaniformes Order.

“The Shoebill, Balaeniceps rex, also known as Whalehead, is a very large stork-like bird. It derives its name from its massive shoe-shaped bill.

The Shoebill is a very large bird. The adult is 115-150 cm (45-64 in) tall, 100-140 cm (40-60in) long, 230-260 cm (91-125 in) across the wings and weighs 4 to 7 kg (8.8-15.5 lbs). The adult is mainly grey while the juveniles are browner. It lives in tropical east Africa in large swamps from Sudan to Zambia.”

Interesting Articles about the Shoebill

Shoebill by African Bird Club

Shoebill – Wikipedia

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