Bald ibis

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Bald ibis
Waldrapp (Geronticus eremita)

Waldrapp ( Geronticus eremita )

Systematics
Class : Birds (aves)
Order : Pelecaniformes
Family : Ibises and spoonbills (Threskiornithidae)
Genre : Geronticus
Type : Bald ibis
Scientific name
Geronticus eremita
( Linnaeus , 1758)

The Waldrapp ( Geronticus eremita ) is an ibis about the size of a goose . The closest relative is the smooth-necked black horse belonging to the same genus . Previously placed among the wading birds , according to more recent findings it is part of the order Pelecaniformes . Historical names for this species are Schopfibis , Mähnenibis , Klausrapp , Steinrapp , Klausrabe and Waldhopf .

The Waldrapp was once a common bird in Europe , native to France , Switzerland , Germany , Austria (most recently there in Styria ), Spain and the western Balkans . In the 17th century the bald ibises died out in Central Europe due to intensive hunting.

Various attempts at reintroduction are currently underway to re-establish the bald ibis as a breeding bird in Europe. In 2019, around 700 birds lived in the wild in Morocco and around 250 semi-wild in Turkey, plus more than 100 in reintroduction projects. About 2000 birds are kept in captivity.

features

Adult animals, including tail feathers, reach a body length of 60 (for females) to 75 cm (for males) and usually have a life expectancy of around 15 to 20 years. The weight of a fully grown wood rapeseed is up to 1.5 kg. The entire plumage is pitch black and has a metallic sheen. It has a grayish-silvery sheen on the neck and belly. On the neck, on the back, on the wing tips and on the tail feathers, the feathers shine greenish to (more rarely) bluish, on the wing shoulders, however, purple to reddish. The face and forehead are bald and flesh-red in color, the nape feathers are lanceolate and greatly elongated, giving the impression of a forelock or a mane. The “forelock” can be spread open in case of danger or during courtship . The beak is red and slightly curved downwards into a sickle shape. The legs are bald and stocky.

Northern bald ibises show no pronounced sexual dimorphism . The females are just slightly smaller and lighter than the males.

behavior

Bald ibises in Tel Aviv University

Socializing

The bald ibis is a sociable bird that forms colonies of several dozen to over a hundred individuals . Single pairs kept in zoos do not regularly breed. Breeding mood only arises in a colony.

Greeting ritual

The behavior of the Waldrapps includes an extensive greeting ritual. The birds circle the nesting and resting rocks for days until they have found their partner. After landing males and females throwing the head with erected Schopf in the neck and then bow with loud Chrup-Chrup - Call each other. The individual head drawing is presented to the other person. This bowing ritual is repeated several times in a row. The greeting of a couple triggers the greeting ritual in the entire bald ibis colony and is not limited to the courtship and mating season. Beak fights can occur between rival males when nests are harassed or nesting materials are stolen. However , no bird is ever injured in these comment fights .

Food and subsistence

The food of the wood rapids consists of insects and their larvae , worms , snails and their eggs, grasshoppers , spiders , and more rarely small mammals , reptiles and amphibians as well as vegetable food. The bird seeks food by poking the ground with its beak. On the free-flight or resettlement areas in Austria ( Almtal ) and Bavaria ( Burghausen ), he looks for freshly mown meadows, wetlands and floodplain meadows as well as embankments and pastures.

In the habitats of the last wild populations (Morocco and Syria / Ethiopia) it can also be seen in dry steppes and semi-deserts while foraging for food .

Reproduction

Artificial nests of a colony in Birecik
Geronticus eremita

There is only one brood per year between March and June with two to four eggs. Breeding colonies can be found in rock faces and on cliffs. Nests are built from twigs, grass and leaves in rock niches. Both sexes participate in nest building. The breeding season is 27 to 28 days. After 45 to 50 days, during which the young animals are also fed by other adult animals in the colony, they are fully fledged, but remain with their parents for a longer time in order to learn how to obtain food. Between 1994 and 2004 the number of young animals successfully reared in the wild fluctuated between 0.6 and 1.6 young animals per breeding pair.

distribution

Original spread

Until the 17th century the bald ibis was widespread in the Balkans across Hungary , Italy , Austria , Switzerland , southern Germany , North Africa and the Middle East .

Today's distribution

Morocco

In the Souss Massa National Park in Morocco , around 220 birds, 57 of them breeding pairs, were counted in 1994; In 2001 there were 66 breeding pairs; 2002 around 315 birds; 2003 approx. 85 breeding pairs and 100 young birds; In 2004 there were 420 birds, including 98 breeding pairs and around 110 young birds. In 2014 the population comprised 524 birds, of which 115 breeding pairs and 192 this year's young birds. At the beginning of 2019, the total population in the two Moroccan bald ibis colonies Souss-Massa National Park and Tamri reached 708 birds after 147 breeding pairs that had laid eggs in the previous breeding season had successfully reared 170 chicks.

The Moroccan bald ibises stay in their breeding area all year round, which simplifies their protection and monitoring. The Souss-Massa National Park was established in 1991 and local residents were hired to protect and guard the breeding birds.

Turkey

In Birecik in the province of Şanlıurfa in Turkey , the semi-wild colony there consisted of 42 adults and 17 young birds in 2001. In 2002, 19 young birds were raised and in 2005 there were a total of 86 birds. In 2018 the growing colony consisted of nearly 250 individuals. The birds breed here on a cliff in the middle of the city. The colony numbered at least a thousand birds in 1911 and thrived well into the 1950s.

The northern bald ibises left Birecik in August and returned in spring each year, and their return was celebrated with a local festival. According to local superstition, the bald ibis accompanied pious pilgrims on their Hajj to Mecca in autumn and a bald ibis led Noah when it landed on Mount Ararat after the flood .

The embedding in the local folklore probably contributed significantly to the survival of this population. However, in 1959 and 1960, a large part of the population died: more than 600 dead birds were found near Birecik. They had fallen victim to what was believed to be accidental pesticide poisoning in the fields where they were looking for food. In 1989 only one bird lived of the wild population.

As early as 1977, a breeding population in captivity was started with two adult bald ibises and nine young birds. Today it lives freely on the steep cliffs in the city almost all year round, but is captured in autumn so that it does not migrate to the unsafe winter quarters in the south.

Syria

In Palmyra ( Syria ), a colony only discovered in the spring of 2002 consisted of two breeding pairs and three subadult birds. Despite protective measures, the number of birds decreased more and more in the following years. The last brood took place in 2014. In 2017, individual bald ibises were spotted.

Reintroduction programs

Waldrapp in Vienna's Schönbrunn Zoo
Free Northern Bald ibises in Grünau im Almtal
Aviary near Heiligenberg on Lake Constance
Wild bald ibis in Morocco

Due to the successes in breeding in zoos (e.g. Schönbrunn Zoo ), there are enough animals available for reintroduction today. Originally from the Konrad Lorenz Research Center in Grünau im Almtal in Austria , the species protection project "Waldrappteam" started some reintroduction projects for Austria (Grünau im Almtal, Kuchl ), Germany ( Burghausen , Überlingen ) and Italy .

The "Waldrappen Team" project was and is carried out with a lot of effort, but has repeatedly suffered setbacks. The main problem for reintroduction is the fact that the bald ibis is a migratory bird, but the flight route has to be learned by the parents in the first year. Young birds reared by humans do not know this flight route. They fly from their homes in August, but not together and in different directions. One way to learn them is for their human foster parents, on whom they are shaped , to fly ahead of them in light aircraft and show them the way.

As part of the European LIFE + EU project, which is supported by the WWF , among others, the bald ibis is to be reintroduced as a real migratory bird in Germany. As part of this, offspring from Austrian zoos are raised and accompanied across the Alps to an Italian wintering area, from where they can independently fly north with their conspecifics in spring. The aim of the EU project is to create an independent European bald ibis population whose animals again show migratory behavior like their ancestors.

An important technical component of the projects with migrating bald ibises is the use of ultra-modern, lightweight GPS devices . They are strapped to the birds' backs so that the exact position of the animals can be called up at any time.

Carinthia

With the first migration attempt in 2003 there were still various problems, but they provided important information for the project. All the birds from this first attempt now live in the Rosegg Wildlife Park ( Carinthia ), where they are kept in free flight and have been breeding since 2005. After an initial successful migration with seven birds in 2004, the bald ibis team was again able to lead seven hand-reared bald ibises to the WWF Oasi della Laguna di Orbetello in southern Tuscany in 2005 ; Bald ibises have flown from Central Europe to a winter area for the first time in 350 years. This shows that the resettlement of the bald ibis in the northern foothills of the Alps, i.e. the historical area of ​​distribution in Central Europe, does not stand in the way of insurmountable obstacles. In 2007 the bald ibises came back to Austria from Italy for the first time. A couple successfully raised three pups, but they were lost during migration. In 2008, the first two bald ibises in hundreds of years were taken to a wintering area by an adult conspecific.

Salzburg

Salzburg is a well-known historical breeding site for the bald ibises, whereby the Mönchsberg , which housed one of the largest breeding colonies in Europe until the Middle Ages, is frequently mentioned. Resettlement is not possible there today. In 2011, a human-led migration was carried out based on a training camp in Anif . The aim of the Reason for Hope project was the establishment of an independent, migrating breeding colony of at least 40 individuals by the end of 2019. The Georgenberg in the Kuchl community - an island rock in the Salzach Valley about 15 km south of the city of Salzburg - provides suitable rock structures as breeding sites, whereby from 2014 the northern bald ibis were brought to an aviary. In the meantime there were eagle owl attacks, so that the bald ibis breeding colony had to be abandoned. The breeding pairs and nine chicks were relocated to Burghausen. In 2019 the Georgenberg housed the largest European breeding colony. 27 chicks had hatched in 8 nests and more were expected. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic , no escort with light aircraft could be carried out in 2020. Nevertheless, 15 animals traveled independently from Tuscany to Tennengau in March .

Bavaria

From 2007 to 2010 around 15 hand-reared bald ibises were taken from Burghausen in Bavaria by light aircraft to the WWF-Oasi della Laguna di Orbetello , since 2008 east around the Alps, as the direct route over the Alpine passes was problematic for light aircraft and birds. In 2011 the first two bald ibises of the successful migration in 2008 became sexually mature, but did not fly back to the breeding area Burghausen alone. A female that was not yet sexually mature has returned to the breeding area without human help.

Baden-Württemberg

In Hödingen, a suburb of Überlingen on Lake Constance, a resettlement project was established in 2017 by the biologist of the Austrian bald ibis team. In 2017, 31 and then in 2018, 33 bald ibis chicks from breeding colonies were selected for hand-rearing. They were looked after by two experienced foster mothers. At the end of August 2018, 29 bald ibises flew with human companions over the Alps to winter quarters in Tuscany to the WWF protected area Laguna di Orbetello within 13 days. A ringed bald ibis from 2017 hand-rearing was spotted in Switzerland at Domat / Ems south of Liechtenstein in July 2019 and was photographed up close. Since the female cannot breed yet, a return to the breeding area around Überlingen is not yet necessary.

In 2019, a new training camp for around 30 bald ibis chicks was set up in Heiligenberg near Überlingen so that rearing is not impaired by returning wild birds that could reach Hödingen. The return of the released bald ibises “of the first Überlinger generation” is not expected until 2020 and will become sexually mature and capable of breeding after three years. It was planned to demonstrate the hand-rearing of the Waldrapp chicks in Überlingen at the 2020 State Garden Show . The state horticultural show, however, was postponed for a year (see Landesgartenschau Überlingen 2021 ). Since it became known that no project funding from the European Commission is to be expected for 2020, private sponsors have been sought so that the project work at Überlingen can continue without interruption.

In 2020 some 3-year-old bald ibises flew back over the Alps from winter quarters in Tuscany and arrived at Lake Constance at the beginning of May. You have recognized your foster mother and will continue to be supported by her. According to the Animal Tracker mobile app co-developed by the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology , five Northern Bald ibises will be outdoors in the Lake Constance area in summer 2020 .

Andalusia

A five-year reintroduction project has also been running in Spain since 2003. In December 2004, 21 animals were released into the wild in La Janda in Andalusia near Cadiz . A couple successfully bred in 2009 in the Parque Natural de La Breña y Marismas del Barbate near Cádiz. In the meantime, this wild population has developed very well, from a colony of 9 breeding pairs (2011), 10 (2012), 15 (2013) to 23 breeding pairs in 2014, which successfully raised 25 young birds in 2014. In 2014 the total population of this Spanish colony was 78 wild birds, divided into two separate colonies, originally on the cliffs along the Atlantic coast, which in 2012 changed to a second colony inland in the rocks along the road near La Barca de Vejer in the municipality of Vejer de la Frontera had spread (species protection project "Proyecto Eremita").

Morocco

Another reintroduction project is running in Mezguitem in Morocco, where bald ibises were breeding until 1985 and were present until 1995. In 2001 the first young birds hatched there.

Syria

In 2010, in Syria , near the city of Palmyra , an attempt was made to supplement the remaining population with young birds from Turkish free-flight rearing. Three boys were brought to an aviary in the desert. In fact, the three last adult adults living in the wild kept them together. An adult female took the young birds on the migration towards Ethiopia over a long distance to Saudi Arabia before the animals separated. Such programs appear to be the only way to save the remaining bald ibis population in the Middle East and are set to continue in the future.

Waldrapp and humans

Waldrapp in a historical illustration

In early and ancient Egypt , the bald ibis was considered to bring light and the embodiment of the human spirit . He was called Ah . Already in the early dynasties it was believed that after death man would ascend to heaven as a transfigured and deified oh and become a star . The figure of the Waldrapps found its way into hieroglyphic writing and is registered as the Gardiner symbol G25 .

In Islam , the bald ibis is seen as a good luck charm, which is said to have shown Noah the way from Mount Ararat to the fertile valley of the Euphrates after the flood .

Reports date from the 4th century AD that the bald ibis was native to the Roman fortifications of Sponeck on the Kaiserstuhl . This statement is confirmed by archaeological bone finds near the castle.

The first ornithological description of the Waldrapps was made in 1557 by the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner under the name Phalacrocorax . He mentions that the inhabitants of the Alps refer to the bald ibis as "Waldrab" and "Klausrab" and that in Italy young birds are considered delicacies .

In the 17th century, bald ibises were protected in the Orient because various nomadic tribes believed that they carried away the souls of the deceased in their iridescent plumage. In Europe, on the other hand, the bald ibis were in great demand as a delicacy under the name "Schopfibis", and as "Waldrapp" they were considered an ornithological treasure. Hunters, collectors and trophy hunters plundered nests, stealing young animals for zoos and killed adult animals to then for purposes of taxidermy to sell to natural history museums and collectors. The consequence was a massive decimation of all stocks in Europe, so that the bald ibis died out in large parts. In Germany it was already wiped out in 1627.

At times thought to be a mythical animal , the sensation was all the greater when in 1897 the ornithologists Walter Rothschild , Ernst Hartert and Otto Kleinschmidt proved beyond doubt that the medieval bald ibis was identical to the crested ibis discovered in the Middle East and North Africa in the course of the 19th century is.

Museum Kuchl dedicated its 2016 special exhibition to the bald ibis, which breeds there on the Georgenberg.

literature

  • Anita Albus : On Rare Birds. Greystone Books, Vancouver et al. 2011, ISBN 978-1-55365-477-3 .
  • Jan Assmann : Death and the afterlife in ancient Egypt. Special edition. CH Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49707-1 .
  • Christiane Böhm, Karin Pegoraro: The Waldrapp: Geronticus eremita - A bald head in turbulence (= The new Brehm library , volume 659). Hohenwarsleben 2011, ISBN 978-3-89432-915-0 .
  • Dominic Couzens : Rare Birds. Survivors, evolution losers and the missing. 50 portraits. Haupt, Bern et al. 2011, ISBN 978-3-258-07629-4 .
  • Georg August Langguth : New Scenery for Nature. According to the most correct observations and experiments in alphabetical order. Volume 9: tar hips to widow. Weidmann, Munich 1780, p. 457 .
  • Hans Kumerloeve: Waldrapp, Geronticus eremita (LINNAEUS, 1758), and Glattnackenrapp, Geronticus calvus (BODDAERT, 1783): On the history of their research and the current situation (in: Annalen des Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, Vol. 81, pp. 319–349 + 10 plates, Vienna 1978).
  • Eberhard Otto : Oh. In: Wolfgang Helck (Hrsg.): Lexikon der Ägyptologie (LÄ). Volume I, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1975, ISBN 3-447-01670-1 .
  • Karin Pegoraro: The bald ibis. From the ibis, which was thought to be a raven (= ornithology collection ), Aula Verlag, Wiesbaden 1996, ISBN 3-89104-548-4 .
  • Rüştü Şahin: For the rearing of the northern bald ibises (Geronticus eremita L.) in Birecik, Turkey (= Communications de la Faculté des Sciences de l'Université d'Ankara, sér. C, t. 25), Fac. des Sciences de l'Univ. d'Ankara 1982, DNB 945334478 .
  • David W. Snow , Christopher M. Perrins: The Birds of the Western Palearctic. 2 volumes. Concise edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 1998, ISBN 0-19-854099-X .
  • Katharina B. Springer, Ragnar K. Kinzelbach : The bird book by Conrad Gessner (1516-1565). An archive for avifaunistic data. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-540-85284-1 .

Web links

Commons : Waldrapp  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Waldrapp  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Georg August Langguth: Neuer Schauplatz der Natur , p. 463.
  2. ^ A b David Snow, Christopher M. Perrins: The Birds of the Western Palearctic . Pp. 146-148.
  3. ↑ a b c d e Anita Albus: On Rare Birds . Pp. 68-94.
  4. ↑ Rapport sur la reproduction de l'Ibis chauve dans la région de Souss-Massa, 2014 , accessed on February 6, 2015
  5. ↑ Record breeding season for Northern Bald Ibis in Morocco at MaghrebOrnitho.
  6. ↑ a b c d e Dominic Couzens: Rare birds . Pp. 91-94.
  7. ^ "Northern Bald Ibis" at dogadernegi.org.
  8. ↑ a b Project Waldrappteam - birds in flight lessons. WWF supports species protection project for the bald ibis. WWF Germany , accessed April 5, 2018 .
  9. ↑ taz article on Waldrapp reintroduction into Austria
  10. ↑ Background information on the Waldrapp on waldrappteam.at
  11. ^ Kuchl breeding area. In: waldrapp.eu. Retrieved May 21, 2020 .
  12. ↑ The bald ibis has landed back in Kuchl. In: www.mein Bezirk.at. Retrieved May 21, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Waldrapp colony on the Kuchler Georgenberg. In: www.kuchl.net. Retrieved May 21, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Corona crisis made northern bald ibises self-employed. In: orf.at. Retrieved May 21, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Spiegel online article from 2011 on the return of the bald ibis
  16. ↑ Spiegel online article from 2018 about Northern Bald ibises on Lake Constance
  17. ↑ Jenna Santini: Finally again bald ibises in Überlingen: Second hand rearing in Hödingen with 33 chicks . In: Südkurier . May 22, 2018 ( suedkurier.de [accessed April 26, 2019]).
  18. ↑ Jenna Santini: Successful bird migration: Bald ibises and their people end up in winter quarters . In: Südkurier . August 28, 2018 ( [1] [accessed April 27, 2019]).
  19. ↑ Jenna Santini: A stubborn bald ibis: the female Sonic likes it so much in Switzerland that she doesn't fly on to Überlingen . In: Südkurier . July 19, 2019 ( [2] [accessed July 12, 2019]).
  20. ↑ Hanspeter Walter: Waldrappen team moves to Heiligenberg: First practice flights of the young birds probably in May . In: Südkurier . April 25, 2019 ( [3] [accessed April 27, 2019]).
  21. ↑ News on Ueberlingen2020.de
  22. ↑ Laura Marinovic: Turbulence for the Waldrappen team: It is currently unclear whether there will be hand rearing in Heiligenberg again in 2020 . In: Südkurier . December 11, 2019 ( [4] [accessed December 12, 2019]).
  23. ↑ Hanspeter Walter: After three years back on Lake Constance as planned: Waldrapp “Zoppo” is back . In: Südkurier . May 12, 2020 ( [5] [accessed May 12, 2020]).
  24. ↑ Stefan Hilser: Twelve more bald ibises on the return flight to Lake Constance, for the first time return to two newly established breeding areas at the same time . In: Südkurier . May 12, 2020 ( [6] [accessed May 12, 2020]).
  25. ↑ Highlights of the Waldrapp project: Start-up for two new breeding colonies. In: waldrapp.eu. May 11, 2020, accessed May 13, 2020 .
  26. ^ Hanspeter Walter: The downer for the Waldrapp project: Further project funding from the EU again rejected . In: Südkurier . June 18, 2020 ( [7] [accessed June 30, 2020]).
  27. ↑ José Manuel López Vázquez, Miguel Angel Quevedo Muñoz, Iñigo Sánchez García, Borja Rodríguez Martín, David Gimeno Real, Eduardo Aguilera Prieto: Crónica de la reintroducción del Ibis eremita en Andalucía. Quercus, 349, pp. 14-23, 2015 ( PDF for download from ResearchGate ).
  28. ↑ http://www.zoobotanicojerez.com/index.php?id=1786
  29. ↑ http://birdingcadizprovince.weebly.com/cadiz-birding-blog-page/archives/05-2015
  30. ↑ Eberhard Otto: Oh . In: Wolfgang Helck : Lexikon der Ägyptologie (LÄ) , Volume IS 49–52.
  31. ↑ Jan Assmann: Death and Beyond in Ancient Egypt . Pp. 116-118.
  32. ^ A b Katharina B. Springer, Ragnar Kinzelbach: The bird book by Conrad Gessner . P. 151 & 152.
  33. ↑ Pierer's Universal-Lexikon Volume 18, Altenburg 1864, p. 804 (German)
  34. ^ Museum Kuchl