By now we were about 1 1/2 hours into our 2 hour boat ride and still no sign of the wretched bird. The two boats split up so they could cover a wider area and with that our hearts sank and we had flashbacks to "right time, right place Rich" in India last year who (allegedly) saw many more tigers than we did, plus sloth bear and also got charged by a bull elephant! We shared the depressing experience with the other Ian and commiserated on him for having the bad luck to be in the same boat as us and all the while our poor boatman and Joseph were scanning the area in the hope of seeing a shoebill.
Several times we turned into very narrow channels and had to cut the engine, presumably to stop reeds etc wrapping around the propeller, and so they had to resort to long wooden poles to propel us along. We were a long way down such a channel when the call came to say the other boat had a sighting - flippin' typical! We knew what was coming next; a frantic attempt to turn the boat around, get back out into deeper water and attempt to reach the other boat - by which time the shoebill would have given up waiting and gone off to do whatever shoebills do during the day. And in the midst of all this activity one of them managed to hit me hard on the head with a pole - boy did it hurt!
Anyway eventually we caught up with the other boat and actually went in front of it - well Joseph was in charge here not Olly after all. He and boatman then took off their shoes and jumped into the shallow waters and actually dragged the boat along. Ian was in front of me and being that little bit taller caught a glimpse of it through the reeds and he was absolutely thrilled. I thought that would be it, just a mere sighting, but no they proceeded to pull and push the boat through the reeds until all 3 of us had a fabulous view and if there was a reed sticking up spoiling the view they simply flattened it with an oar. The same happened with the other boat and although they probably weren't quite as close, they maybe had the better angle. We had to remain very quiet and only move slowly as they are very sensitive to human disturbance and may abandon their nests if flushed by humans (this one wasn't on a nest so we were ok to approach it)
So here is my first shot - wow, what a creature!
A fully grown adult male stands around 5' tall, weighs about 5.8kg and has an enormous average wingspan of 7'7 to 8'6. Both male and female are remarkably similar although the male is generally slightly taller/heavier and has a longer beak.
Obviously I got very carried away and took many photos, but here are just a select few.
After a while he/she (impossible to tell from this distance) started a bit of wing stretching and preening which we hoped might be a prelude to flying off.
In order to cool itself the throat puffs in and out.
Here's a bit of video footage which shows it clearly.
On first glance it looks as though it has a very large tooth but in fact it's just how the light fell.
A bit more stretching.
And then it turned around and wandered slowly down to the water.
We were lucky enough to spend a good half hour or more observing this fabulous creature - what an absolutely privilege.
It wasn't easy trying to film from a wobbly boat so I think Ian did extremely well to get this footage.