Hoatzin
(Opisthocomus hoazin)
Identification
The Hoatzin, Guyana’s national bird, is a rare looking species believed to provide a direct link to the Archaeopteryx, the first known bird. While it’s impossible to tell from 150 million year old fossils how much the appearance of the Archaeopteryx resembled the Hoatzin, the Canje Pheasant (as it is commonly called in Guyana) certainly appears antediluvian. The Hoatzin, whose average adult length is 22 inches, has a stocky, pear shaped body, reddish-brown feathers streaked white around the shoulders, and a pale brown underside. Long tail feathers and an elongated neck flank the plump body. Normal enough attributes, but these aren’t the characteristics that draw birders from around the world. The Hoatzin’s blood red eyes peer forth from a ring of bright-blue skin set on a tiny head that seems more diminutive thanks to an unruly crest of long feathers. It gets stranger: chicks are born with two prehistoric claws protruding from their wings; the same claws are seen in Archaeopteryx fossils. Mix in a bird call of hoarse cries, hisses, and grunts that is compared to a heavy smoker, and you get a bird that’s alternately described as majestic and punk rock rebellious, depending on the point of view. The Hoatzin is such a bizarre species that after being shuffled through several bird orders, including the Gruiformes, Galliformes, and the Cuculiformes, researchers eventually put it in its own order: the Opisthocomidae.
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Habitat
Hoatzins are largely found in lowland swampy areas of the Amazon and Orinoco basins of South America. In Guyana, Hoatzins are most common in Birding Zone Four, the Upper Demerara-Berbice area. Mahaica Creek, located not far from Georgetown, has healthy populations of the primitive birds. Canje Pheasants are also primarily spotted along the Berbice River, the Canje Creek (a tributary of the Berbice River), and to a lesser extent near the Abary River in the North and the Takatu River in the South.
Behavior
Hoatzins are social year-round, often living in family groups of up to 40 birds, and rarely travel far from their principal locales. During breeding it’s not rare to find one tree containing many sloppy nests built over the water, usually in plain view of predators. If the nest comes under attack, the adults retreat to the bushes and leave the chicks to fend for themselves. The chicks do so by reverting back to prehistoric times. Either their claws are used to clamber to safety or they plunge into the water and swim to the riverbank (both skills are lost in adulthood).
Hoatzins, which are strictly vegetarian birds, forage for leaves, flowers and fruits in the early morning and evening. For much of the day, the bird roosts and digests vegetable matter in a way that is unique to birds. Hoatzins, like cows, ferment food in their foregut, and it is this regurgitated matter that is fed to nestlings. It is also this strange digestive tract that gives the bird a strong musky odor, which serves well as a defense mechanism—both against hunters and predators. Poor flyers, the Hoatzins rarely take flight, and when they do it is only in spasmodic, noisy bursts.
