Excellent bright condition. Watercolour original with sum highlights in original pastel. Absolute stunner. High skill in the line and colouring and beautiful composition.
Signed and with full title underneath: African Jacana - Actophilornus africana
Watercolour is 36 x 54 cm.
Very good condition gilt frame is 53 x 71 cm. Behind non-reflective glass. Ready to hang on your wall.
ACTOPHILORNIS AFRICANA - THE AFRICAN JACANA
These graceful birds are good divers and strong flyers. Squawking during flight, the African Jacana has a keen sense of sight and hearing and relies little on its sense of smell. The female bird is larger than the male although the colouring of the feathers are much the same between the sexes. Their impressive markings include chestnut brown feathers at their wings, and yellow-orange breast feathers.
In Afrikaans, the graceful African Jacana is known as 'Grootlangtoon' and its Zulu name is 'iThandaluzibo'.
The front of the neck is white and the back of the neck and head are glossy black in colour. The African Jacana's characteristic bill is bluish-gray and the eyes are dark brown. The legs and toes are rather long in relation to the rest of the birds body size.
These lovely birds are known as 'lily walkers' because their slender legs and toes give them the gracefulness to walk on the lily pads that blanket their wetlands. Due to their smaller size, the males are a lot more graceful than the females of the species.
Range mass: 1.4 to 2.6 kg.
Range length: 23 to 31 cm.
HABITAT
African Jacana prefer lagoons, swamps and marshes, where there are lily pads and other floating vegetation. It spends most of its life on large floating leaves. Non-migratory, they are however highly nomadic, often moving in search of new temporary wetlands.
DISTRIBUTION
They are found throughout Zimbabwe, Mozambique, northern Namibia, northern Botswana. In South Africa, African Jacana are abundant in the eastern parts and less common in the rest of the country. To see them, visit the Kruger National Park, the Umhlanga Ponds reserve in Umhlanga and the Bluff Nature Reserve (both around Durban), and several spots within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park in St Lucia including Lake Sibaya.
DIET
Their diet consists primarily of insects (beetles, flies etc.) but also consume small crabs, snails, and small fish.
SOCIALISATION
African Jacanas are sociable birds gathering together in groups near their preferred swamp-like habitats. Confrontational behaviour among same-sexed birds begins at the end of winter and escalates before the mating season which occurs from November to March. African Jacanas are not monogamous in their mating patterns, the female choosing more than one mate each season.
A mating pair can have up to 30 clutches of eggs each season, resulting from either the same partner or various partners. The female African Jacana is more dominant than the male and much larger. At times she will be highly selective about whom she chooses to mate with and she rarely chooses the same partner for every clutch of eggs that she lays.
COMMUNICATION
These colourful waterbirds send out loud, raucous calls when danger lurks or intruders fly over their territory. It is a noisy bird letting out a range of calls and sounds.
