When the world speaks ostrich
This past week, I’ve had three separate ostrich sightings. Weird, right? But when the world speaks ostrich, I must obey and pass it along to you.
My first ostrich sighting was while cleaning out my desk drawers. Gosh . . . the things I found! Among the bits and bobs was a postcard. The image (below) shows an assortment of objects from the last century:
What are these things? There’s a buttoned glove, lace handkerchiefs, a bit of rope, an assortment of screws, nails, coins, hooks, tacks, and stables. Buttons. Bits of fabrics. And a four-inch nail.
Why are these things laid out together? Because they were found in the stomach of an ostrich!
The photo was taken by Frederick William Bond, photographer at the Zoological Society of London, during a post mortem of an ostrich that had died at the zoo in 1927. It had died, it seems, because of that four-inch nail. Apparently, visitors were in the habit of feeding ostriches metal because it had long, long been believed that ostriches could digest anything, including iron. Medieval bestiaries are filled with iron and horseshoe-eating ostriches. Most of the ostriches look like geese, but no matter. The iron in its mouth was a visual clue telling readers which bird was illustrated.
Wacky? Yes. Can ostriches actually digest iron? No. Who came up with this idea? Nobody knows—it goes back thousands of years!
The myth likely originated because ostriches swallow stones, sometimes quite large stones, to help digest tough plants and grasses. They don’t actually eat the stones—they stay in a special muscular part of their stomach called a gizzard to help crush and grind the ostrich’s food. Because, you know, ostriches don’t have teeth. All birds have gizzards, so this behaviour isn’t unique, but I guess because ostriches are so big, their stone-swallowing was more impressive to ancients.
A wacky/logical side effect of the myth is that ostriches were also believed to be super hot. Like, really hot. Hot enough to melt iron, which I guess is why they could digest it. And this crazy bird heat was also used to explain a very true ostrich fact: Ostriches just wander off after laying their eggs. Let me repeat: ostriches lay eggs then leave them completely unattended in the middle of savanna, a place brimming with hyenas, snakes, vultures, mongoose, and other hungry, egg-eating creatures! I know I’ve been talking mythology, but this is a true ostrich fact!
Ostriches do eventually return to incubate and protect their eggs, but that’s not the point. The point is that ancient people used the myth to explain the observed reality. They believed that ostriches couldn’t incubate their eggs because they were too darn hot! Ostriches were so hot, that if they sat on their eggs, their internal iron-melting heat would hard-boil their babies! And nobody wants that.
My second ostrich sighting came to my inbox. I have long subscribed to a rather wonderful and kooky newsletter by the Public Domain Review, a site dedicated “to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas.” Believe me, the PDR delivers. This newsletter contained a link to Whitney Rakich’s article on the Victorian world of ostrich feather dyeing. The curious and compelling work that Rakich explores is Alexander Paul’s The Practical Ostrich Feather Dyer from 1888.
Sorry—this is all a bit academic, and I won’t go into the details accept to say that in 1888 ostrich feathers were a big deal especially in ladies’ fashion. And with the recipes in Alexander Paul’s guide, you could professionally dye your own feathers to match any outfit you owned. Want red feathers? Would you prefer the shade of Ruby, Rose, Red Garnet, Rust, Scarlet, Magenta, Crushed Strawberry or Salmon? What shade of blue? Would you like Bog Green, Pea Green, or Russia Green? Heliotrope, Amaranth, Violet or Lilac? But here’s the best part: the book contained the actual dyed feathers! OOOO . . . so very pretty.
The actual dyed feathers were proof that the recipes worked. If your purple wasn’t quite as brilliant or your lavender not as swooningly delicate, it was your fault, not the recipes. In fact, the author offered $1000 to anyone who could prove the recipes didn’t produce the perfect shade. (That $1000 in 1888. $1000 is still not a small amount, but in current money its a whopping $33,000.)
Just a side note: in her article, Whitney Rakich includes a swack of wondrous ostrich photographs including some mustachioed ostrich riders. Yes, this is actually a thing.
My third ostrich sighting came in a library. It’s always a little thrilling to see one of my books displayed on a shelf. It really fills my heart with happiness, especially when I’m in such good company as Sy Montgomery.
The Superpower Field Guide to Ostriches came out in 2019, which seems a lifetime ago. So I picked up a copy at home and ended up reading the whole thing to my daughters, who had never read it. The things I learned! This might seem silly, but it’s true—I can’t possibly remember all the things I write! So, in honour of all things ostrich, I share my four favourite ostrich facts from the Superpower Field Guide to Ostriches:
1: Ostrich lungs (and in fact all bird lungs) are NOTHING like human lungs, and their design is 100% better. Consider this, whether ostriches are breathing in or breathing out, fresh air is always flowing through their lungs. I call this The Impossible Ever-Flow Lung. It’s incredible design provides birds with as much as twenty times more oxygen than human lungs.
2: Ostriches have the biggest eyeballs of any land animal. Bigger than elephant eyeballs. Bigger than giraffe eyeballs. Only ocean giants like blue whales and giant squid have bigger eyeballs.
3: Ostriches are the world’s fastest distance runners. They could run a marathon in 40 minutes flat. To put that in perspective, if the world’s fastest 100-meter runner sprinted an entire marathon at a 100-meter pace (impossible!), an ostrich would still be almost twice as fast!
4: Ostriches are the only bird that poops. I call them water-saving poop knobbles and they help ostriches survive for weeks without a drink of water.
And that’s it! My three ostrich sightings in one week. It seemed to coincidental not to lean in and explore.
Want to know more?
The postcard of the ostrich’s stomach contents came from The Public Domain Review. If you subscribe or donate to their site, they send you a collection of postcards twice a year. And these postcards are deliciously wacky. Highly recommended. https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/contents-of-an-ostrich-s-stomach-ca-1930/#
More on the ancient myths and science of iron-eating ostriches: https://mad.hypotheses.org/131
A little info on medieval ostrich mythology: https://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast238.htm
Whitney Rakich’s article on ostrich feathers: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/bright-as-a-feather/?utm_source=newsletter
Alexander Paul’s The Practical Ostrich Feather Dyer: https://archive.org/details/practicalostric00paul/mode/1up?view=theater