World Ostrich Day: The Ostrich

The 2nd February 2026 is World Ostrich Day and to mark this, as well as the 350th anniversary of the year of the publication of Francis Willughby’s Ornithologia, this post will focus on some of the description of the ostrich provided in Ornithologia.

Francis Willughby and John Ray had actually seen an ostrich. They saw it on their European Tour, on 30th April 1663, when they were in Brussels, in what is today Belgium. They wrote that between Coudenberg Palace and Bruxelles Park there was a riding place and it was in this area that they observed various species of birds including an ostrich.

Willughby described that it was the greatest of all birds, except perchance the emu. When the bird they observed held its head up, it reached a height of about 2 yards (1.8m or 6 foot). The head was small and flat-crowned. The bill was compressed and very small when compared to the size of the body. It was of a triangular shape and horn-coloured with a black tip. The slit of the mouth was large, reaching so far that its extremes lay directly under the eyes. The eyes were great, with hazel irises.

The Ostrich in Francis Willughby's Ornithologia

The head and neck, almost as far as the breast, were bare of feathers, as were the sides under the wings and the thighs. Specifically, the head and neck were covered with a down, or rather thin-set hairs. The lower part of the neck, where the feathers began, was white. The wings were small and altogether not useful for flying, designed by Nature only to assist the bird in running when spread and moved. The feathers of the back in the male were coal-black but in the female dusky and they were so soft that they resembled a kind of wool. The wing feathers were of the same colour as the back on their underside, but on the other side the upper part was purely white. The tail was thick, bushy and round and in the male the feathers were whitish, but in the female duskish with white tops. These feathers were in great request for soldiers’ hats and helmets and, not only in Italy but also in England, for the fans of Gentlewomen.

Male and female Common Ostriches (Struthio camelus), 2014. By Yathin S Krishnappa, CC-BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The neck and legs of the ostrich were very long. It had only two toes. They measured that the outer toe in the bird they observed was 5½ inches long (about 14cm), whilst the inner toe was 8 inches (about 20cm). The length of the whole foot from the end of the heel was 11 inches (about 28cm). The longer toe was covered with 24 great, disjoined, annular scales and was armed with a great, strong, black claw. However, the outer toe had no claw. The toes were connected with a thick, strong membrane as far as the first joint.

It was also stated that the bird they saw was being fed on bread mixed with hair. However, this is not recommended food for an ostrich today.

In Ornithologia, it was also noted that the ostrich came from Africa and, on occasion, in the deserts there they were seen in such multitudes together that, when seen from afar, they were sometimes mistaken as troops or armies of horsemen.

Further Reading: John Ray, Francis Willughby's Ornithologia, 1678, p.149, T25.

Author - Debbie Jordan, Middleton Hall Volunteer.

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