![]() Males seem to do most of the raising of the chicks along with teaching them to feed. ![]() At birth the young ostriches are a fawn color with brown spots and stiff, spiky down. This is quite a short incubation time as they have a high rate of predation. This means that they are camouflaged the females with the sand and the males with the dark of night. They are glossy and cream colored with small pits in the thick shell.ĭuring the day the female guards the nest and at night the male takes over. Ostriches lay the largest eggs of any bird species. She then removes eggs laid by less dominant females. The first eggs are laid by the dominant female. This nest is about 30-60cm (12-24in) deep and 3m (9.8ft) wide. The female then runs around him with lowered wings before dropping to the ground and preparing for mating.įollowing the mating the females will lay their eggs in a single communal nest which is a simple pit scraped in the ground by the male. Following this he clears a nest in the soil by violently flapping his wings. He will then excitedly flap his wings and poke the ground with his beak. Once he attracts a female they graze together until they are in time. The male uses a series of wing beats to attract a mate. He will mate with several females but only form a bond with what is known as the ‘major’ female. The male will boom (a noise they can produce) as a means of scaring males away from their harem of females. Males will sit on the nest at night when their black feathers blend with the night sky and females sit during the day when they blend with the sand.īreeding season begins in March and ends in September for Ostriches. The coloration of the male and female is helpful when raising chicks. How does the Ostrich survive in its habitat? They have the largest eyes of any land vertebrate at 50mm (2in) in diameter. Ostrich’s toes feature just two toes as opposed to the average four which most birds possess. Males have a blue-grey, pink or grey neck while in females it is a pinkish brown. Females and juveniles are greyish brown where the males are black. Male ostriches have black body feathers with small wings and a tail that are covered with white feathers. Males stand 2.1-2.8m (6ft 11in-9ft 2in) tall with females being slightly shorter at 1.7-2m (5ft 7in-6ft 7in) tall. Read on to learn more about these brilliant birds. While the ostrich is common and large numbers are kept for farming they are suffering a decline in their natural habitat from habitat loss and they have gone extinct in Libya. Females sit on the nest during the day when their brown feathers blend with the sand while males sit at night when their black feathers blend with the night sky. Males and females work together to raise their chicks. ![]() It is thought that the legend that ostriches bury their head in the sand comes from them reaching down to swallow these items. These are used to help grind up the food in their stomach. Females are slightly smaller than the males. The ostrich is the world's largest species of bird with males reaching heights of up to 2.8m (9.2ft) tall.
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