In Johannesburg, and on the beaches and savannas of southern Africa, it is the hadeda ibis, not the rooster, whose song, if it can be called that, announces morning. Har-har-har, he calls. Loud, raucous, guttural, the hadeda’s cacophonous call sounds like drunk men laughing. Har-har-ha-de-da.

Imagine a middle-aged man, grumpy and barrel-chested. He drinks too much, yells too often, laughs a lot but is quick to anger. Now put feathers on him and stick him in a tree. Give him avian vision, a long curved bill, and a Red Sox fan’s hoarse yawp—and hello, hadeda.

To read the rest of this piece, please purchase this issue of the Believer online or at your local bookseller.

—Anthony Schneider