Hammerhead

In Africa there is a strange bird named Scopus umbretta with a scientific name. They don't look like any other animal on earth. Scopus umbretta's head looks like a hammer: the head is attached to a long flat beak, the head is a thick plume. Therefore, they are named after the suggestive name: the hammerhead.

This is a type of water bird, which lives along the tree-lined waters and in the swamp. His body is about 50cm long, brown fur, black beak and legs.

Hammers often live alone, or live in pairs, but sometimes they gather in groups of 6-7.

It is often thought that they work mostly at night, but florists say they are mostly active during the day. Like many other birds, hammers usually only eat in the cool air of dawn and at dusk. In the hot weather, they just parked one place on the tree. Their food is amphibians, fish, insects and crustaceans.

Their story of building a nest is indeed unique in the bird world. The nest is usually made on a big tree near the water's edge. The nest is made of lots of branches, leaves, mud and sometimes the things people leave. The nest of hammer heads is very large, has a diameter of more than 1.5m, has a hole to enter - to a nest with a diameter of about 30cm. Hole facing down. Their nest weighs 25-50kg, quite solid. One can stand on that hole and it still does not break. Scopus umbretta takes 3 weeks to 6 months to finish the nest.

Although building a nest in such a solid and time-consuming way, the hammerhead has a very confusing habit.They not only built a nest but built five to six such teams in their "territory" consecutively. Yet they only use one of those nests.

The strange habit of the hammerhead only benefits other birds. Many types of lazy birds build nests like owls, goose, and ducks often use the available hollow nest of the hammerhead to make shelter. The hammers are quite gentle: Even if they are living in nests, sparrows and many other small birds can also join them. Not only birds, but even snakes, genet civets and varanas also get into the hammers' nests to sleep.

The hammerhead has a unique type of confession with complex dances along with screams that appeal to partners. Each spawning season, hammers spawn for 3-6 months, eggs are incubated for 30 days. Young birds stay in the nest for up to 50 days. Both father and mother bird care for young birds. The males and females are very similar, but the females are a bit smaller.

These strange birds adapt quite well to the presence of people, sometimes they come in and out very naturally, as if they come into their nest. In Africa, it is believed that if you arbitrarily disturb this type of bird, it is unfortunate to take on many unfortunate things. The Hottentot and Zulu people claim that the hammerhead can predict someone who is about to die.

According to the Zulu legend, hammers often fly over the house of the dying and shout for 3 hours, so the Zulu people throw stones at the hammerhead as they fly over their houses. If it flies over someone's head, it means that something bad happens to that person on the same day.

The Hottentot also said that the hammerhead saw the shooting star fall on the unfortunate house, they would fly to that house and shout to tell the landlord.