Return of Bird of the Week: Snowy Sheathbill

There are no vultures in the Antarctic. But there is carrion. The ecological niche of carrion eaters is occupied instead by the Sheathbills. Sheathbills are odd in a number of ways. Two species of Sheathbill, the Snowy and the Black-faced, make up the entre family of Chionidae. They are also the only land bird in Antarctica, meaning they have talons and not webbed feet. They are the only sub-Antarctic species with bare skin on their face, and the only species with those odd, horny plates on their will. It’s those plates that give the bird its common name. Like a…