The Nest Of The Bird-Witch

The courtship dance of the Hammerhead Stork is not often seen because usually it is performed late in the day or early in the morning. It sometimes takes place during the bright daytime because I have heard the same excited clamoring then. After the brief courtship performance is completed, both birds proceeded to rearrange the sticks on which they stood, picking them up at random and dropping them again without apparent meaning or order. Finally one of the birds took wing, flew directly away from the tree, then turned back and darted downward to swoop sharply up and seemingly dive into the middle of the pile of driftwood. The secret was out. Although it was a pile of driftwood, it was not there by chance.

No summer freshets or floods could have drifted such a mass of material into place so firmly. Each stick, reed, or ancient corncob had been tucked in place, and, together, a pair of birds about the size of ravens had stacked up those bushels of rubbish. The nest measured twelve feet in circumference, horizontally and vertically, and it was so strong that a heavy man could walk back and forth across it with no danger of doing damage. 

There were three white eggs streaked with mud and partly trodden into the floor. In fact they looked as though they might have been there far too long to be meddled with in safety. By now the silvery western sky was making a perfect backdrop for the weird silhouette of the great thorn-tree. The branches, sparsely covered with folded leaves, held in their embrace the immense pile of the nest, and outlined against the sky stood a motionless bird, jet-black against a fading sunset. Next morning we went down to the nest once more, this time photographically minded.

The Zulu who went along to cut a path and strode along as though he knew of no such thing as fear, but from a bend in the stream he sighted the nest ahead and halted abruptly. "We had better cross here and follow the other bank," he said. "Why?" I demanded. "Do you see that nest up there? That is the nest of U Tegwane, a witch," he replied. "But that is only the nest of a bird," I said. "No, the one who made that is no bird, he is more than that. Just see for yourself, he sits by the river at night and looks at his reflection in the water and says, 'How beautiful I am. How very beautiful I am." And then he flies about at dusk and makes mischief. We must not go near that nest."

No amount of persuasion or offer of rewards could induce the man to go closer, so he sat down firmly. "If you must go to the nest, go, but I turn my back on you, and whatever happens I am not to blame," he asserted. Then the tales of superstitions poured forth.