Ostriches. They have got to fascinate, don’t they? Amazing fabulous birds, mean, beautiful, dangerous, stunning and of course, gigantic! I won’t pretend I know all about them, but I did do some reading and here’s the skinny on ostriches, or everything you’d ever want to know.

Are you aware that those guys can weigh 330 pounds, the males that is, and can grow to be 9 feet tall? With a wing spread if nine feet? That means they could not fit into my living room, not that I’d actually invite them in. Unless they were housebroken, of course. Can you imagine how large and gross ostrich droppings are? Yeck. It also means ostriches are the largest bird in bird world, kinda a feathered very long legged land-version of the Blue whale.

And about those legs. Easily used to discourage or kill predators, they look like thick saplings with two grotesque, huge, nailed toes on each huge lethal foot, all evolved for killing and running, and man-oh-man, can they run. And stomp. And kick. And they will, if you mess with them. I advise that you to never mess with them. They can use those big scaly featherless legs for running up to 45 miles per hour and they do it well and can keep up that speed for a long time, so if you’re on foot and one of them takes a fancy to you, you’d ought to at least be cognizant of nearby trees.

And let’s talk about those faces. Sweet, soft, loving with great hard flat, ugly beaks good for foraging, and huge eyes that can see great distances, fringed by great feathery long eyelashes for which today’s ladies would pay dearly. However, despite those huge eyes, the largest of any land animal by the way, they front a rather small brain, but that does not matter much because these guys can really defend themselves with those beaks and murderous feet, so they really never have to do much deep thinking.

Their feathers are huge and glorious and way back were made into fans to be used a lot by lady strippers to hide their personals from the audiences as they danced and teased on stage during vaudeville days. Those ladies could strip off bit by bit and hide it all behind those black feathers with the white fluffy ends. (Stolen from male ostriches, since the female feathers also huge, ugly and long, were mousy brownish-grey.) I have often wondered if actual birds had to die for those enormous show-biz dance-fans and if not, how did people ever disabuse those big dangerous beautiful birds of their plumage? Tricky.

After a vigorous and lengthy courtship display, the big birds apparently enjoy coupling when things are wet, like the rainy season, wherever that may be, mostly Africa, and when a male ostrich gets a female (slightly smaller) ostrich in the family way, the mother-to-be can lay ten or more eggs, give or take, on the ground which is their nest since ostrich nests are typically just depressions in the earth. And the eggs? You of course know they are the largest eggs of any birds except maybe those birds who palled around with T-Rex. And huge? They weigh around three pounds with shells like linoleum, it takes around 46 days for large baby ostriches to peck their ways through those extremely hard shells. Have you ever seen films of proud Ostrich parents leading a huge bunch of chicks to wherever ostriches go for walks? Amazing sight and woe unto any predator who decides to lighten the family numbers. Mom and Pop will make short shrift of him/her with those lethal feet! And one egg, by the way, is the equivalent of 24 chicken eggs a single egg can make one enormous omelet to feed an entire human family of six! That is if those humans had the courage to raid the nests which no one really ought to do, at least when the parents are nearby.

But what’s sweet is that both parents take turns incubating the eggs, with Father doing it mostly at night and Mama by day. And you’re really curious about what they ate, right? Mostly vegetarian, they occasionally crave a little protein so will scarf down the unfortunate snake, rodent or worm who made the fatal mistake of passing by. One stab from the giant bird and gulp, one can watch the poor critter sliding down those long hairy necks. Oh, and to help those big birds digest their food, they also swallow stones and gritty things.

But humans swallow ostriches too, alas. There are ostrich farms everywhere and those big beauties get sold and slaughtered for their meat and feathers, eggs and leather. Ostrich leather cowboy boots are sadly a great status symbol to own.

And one last thing; ostriches never ever hide their heads in the sand. Why should they?

LC Van Savage is a Brunswick writer.