Ostrich - A Life on the Run
Mike Birkhead, Martyn Colbeck
Austria | 2015 | 50’
The ostriches of Namibia face an enormous annual challenge: choosing exactly the right moment to breed. The birds must ensure that their clutches hatch around the time of the rains. If the timing is wrong, food will be scarce - and the chicks will die. If it’s right, then a new generation will get the chance of a life on the run. Many of the remaining wild ostriches of Africa live in the Namib Desert, the oldest desert in the world. Here, hot, dry winds blown from South Africa bake the parched sands, and the territorial call of the male ostrich can be heard resounding across the dunes. This nomadic bird has no permanent home. Instead, it wanders with a harem of hens that it must constantly defend from neighbouring males. The birds are an incredible sight. Avian record breakers, the black and white males are the tallest and heaviest of all living birds. On the eastern edge of the desert, at the height of the dry season, these giants show their strength. Flicking their wings in aggressive displays, the males charge at each other, hoping to scare away any challengers to their mating rights.