Colours of Wildlife: Spotted Dikkop

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Spotted Dikkop

Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"

Spotted Dikkop by Willem


The bird I have for you today is one I have many pleasant memories of. This is a Spotted Dikkop, Burhinus capensis. The name 'Dikkop' means 'thick head', since these birds have larger heads than their close relatives, the plovers. The genus name Burhinus means 'ox-nose', also somehow perhaps signifying the swollen-looking head, while the species name refers to the bird being present in the Cape. Today the old Cape Province has been broken apart, into the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Northern Cape. But the spotted dikkop occurs in them all! Dikkops have two other names used outside of South Africa, namely Thick-Knees, because they have rather enlarged ankle (not knee!) joints, and Stone Curlews, since they often occur in stony regions, and are distant relatives of curlews.

Nocturnal Dry-land Waders


Unlike curlews, and its many other relatives (comprising the order Charadriiformes, the waders and gulls), dikkops are not associated with water. Their long legs, which in many other waders like the Blackwinged Stilt are used to wade into water, they instead use for stalking around the grassland. They are associated with open land with short grass and scrub, frequently stony ground, and thorny, scrubby patches giving them some shelter by day. Their spotted black, white and yellowish-brown plumage gives them excellent camouflage. A resting dikkop is hard to spot, even up close. If they feel they're in danger of being perceived, they'll skulk away noiselessly. Indeed, many people end up never seeing them, even in regions where they are common.


The first time I saw and recognized a dikkop was in the early eighties, when I was just starting to become really interested in birds. It was here in the suburb in Polokwane, then still called Pietersburg. We all saw the strangely quiet bird by the side of the road, and we had no idea what it was. But only a little bit of searching in the old bird guide we had then, revealed to us its identity. (That old guide, by O. P. M. Prozesky and beautifully illustrated by Dick Findlay, was a major influence on my love of nature.) Dikkops, when seen well, are easy to identify. They are similar to the familiar plovers, but larger. Plovers usually have bold plumage that stands out amidst the grass, and they are bold and noisy, not as secretive as the dikkops. Finally, dikkops have huge, yellow eyes.


It is those eyes that give another clue to the puzzle. They are large because dikkops are nocturnal! While they are inactive and inconspicuous by day, dikkops are active – and, like plovers, noisy – by night. Indeed we soon learnt something else about dikkops: despite never having seen them before encountering that one lost-looking individual beside the road, we had been hearing them almost every night. Dikkops produce loud, penetrating, somewhat mournful whistles, 'wi-wi-wi-wee-wee-weeu, wee-weeu', that back then were part of the wild night sounds along with the crickets and the howling of the jackals. Dikkops often call while flying, so you'll hear the call starting out in the distance, growing louder as the dikkop approaches, and then fading away in the distance again.


Once I finally put everything together, I realized that dikkops were indeed some of the commonest birds around here. I started seeing them very regularly as well. Being attuned to them, I was able to spot them resting in the thorny shade by day. I even found them nesting in a little park. Dikkop nests hardly exist at all; they lay their eggs on the stony ground, sometimes in a patch where there's a bit of shade, and leave them fully exposed for much of the time. But the eggs, usually two per clutch, with brownish blotches and speckles, are extremely well camouflaged. You won't spot them easily, nor would you easily spot the parents when they sit on the nest brooding them. Similarly, the little dikkop chicks are hard to spot. They are born downy and with open eyes, and accompany the parents for much of the time. The parents pass food to the chicks, or point food out to them, and so they learn to feed themselves. Dikkops eat a variety of invertebrates, and perhaps even small rodents, frogs and lizards, which they peck with their strong, stout bills.


When dikkops feel threatened, or when they feel their eggs or chicks are threatened, they give a display which suddenly causes them to become very conspicuous. They spread out their wings, which are very large for their size, and boldly marked in black and white. These bold markings are entirely concealed while the dikkop's wings are folded. Then the dikkop, with the spread wings making it look very large, utters a growling call and will rush towards the predator or human it considers a threat. I don't know how frequently this works in driving the threat away!


Dikkops use similar displays amongst themselves. Males spread their wings, fan their tails and alternate between bowing, and stretching up on their legs, to try to look impressive to each other. Similar displays are probably used by a male trying to attract a female, but we know surprisingly little about mating habits of dikkops, since it takes place at night.


The spotted dikkop is widespread and occurs throughout open habitats in Africa south of the Sahara. In South Africa, some populations have adapted very well to humans and are now found in parks as well as suburban gardens, where they become tame enough to be approached quite closely. Only one other dikkop species lives in South Africa, the Water Dikkop, which is associated with large rivers in the warm and moist regions of the south, east and north. Their loud calls are as typical of these riverine areas as the spotted dikkop calls are of the open savannah and grasslands. Dikkops, thick-knees or stone curlews occur worldwide in warm regions. They are a small but distinctive family, all looking very similar, the largest and most conspicuously marked being the huge-billed beach stone curlews of eastern Asia and Australia.

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