I came up with this idea because one of my search keywords
this week was “list of tall birds,” which means that someone happened upon my
blog this week in their search for tall birds. I have no idea why a search
engine would bring them here, as I have never blogged about tall birds before,
but I am about to rectify that oversight and hopefully, in the process, rake in
some of that sweet, sweet tall bird traffic.
You probably already knew that the tallest living bird is
the ostrich, a bird native to Africa that can grow as tall as 9.2 ft (2.8 m)
and weigh more than 345 lb (156 kg). The ostrich is also the fastest flightless
bird, capable of reaching speeds up to 40 mph (70 km/h). It also lays the
largest eggs in the world; its eggs can weigh up to 3 lb (1.4
kg), and can be eaten, although I’d imagine you’d need a pretty big frying
pan for one of those. Cracking open an ostrich egg is a bit of an ordeal, too, according to this YouTube
video in which a lady carefully taps her ostrich egg endlessly with the
edge of a knife until she’s finally able to crack a small hole in it and pry
off the top.
The ostrich bears the dubious distinction of being the
second most likely bird to kill you, and not from high cholesterol. Though
ostriches will usually run away if they can, they will attack to defend their
young or territory, which they do by kicking at you with their powerful legs
and large claws. In the town of Oudtshoorn, South Africa, the “Ostrich
Capital of the World,” two to three people each year are seriously injured or killed
by ostriches. Domesticated ostriches are just as territorial and violent as
wild ones, which may at least in part explain why a single ostrich egg costs
between $45 and $90 depending on its size, although that website I linked
to does make allusions to a “bargain” egg that you probably don’t want to eat.
In many countries, especially South Africa and the United
States, ostrich racing is a popular pastime. Some ostrich jockeys hitch the
bird to a special cart, but it’s possible to fit an ostrich with a saddle and
ride it, though Wikipedia notes that the birds are “harder to manage than
horses.” You see examples of both these riding styles in this Dutch newsreel from September 1933:
If the ostrich is the world’s second-most-deadly huge bird,
you may be wondering which enormous bird is the world’s deadliest. That bird is
the southern cassowary, a species native to the rainforests of northwestern
Australia and New Guinea. This bird can grow to more than 6’3” tall (190 cm)
and weigh up to 187 lb (85 kg), so it is bigger than me, though not by much.
Although the cassowary is no more aggressive than the
ostrich, it will still attack when it feels threatened – and since their
natural habitat is in an UNESCO World Heritage rainforest, tourists often
approach them and try to feed them, a gesture that, in general, does not go
over well. Though urban legends that describe the southern cassowary as capable
of disemboweling a human with one slash of its 4.7 inch (12 cm) claw are
untrue, the bird can inflict some nasty injuries and is capable
of killing an animal as large as a horse. The northern cassowary, the third
largest bird in the world, is very similar to the southern cassowary, except
for its accent and slightly smaller size.
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| I will cut you. Image by www.viajar24h.com |
