How birds came to be colourful

When we look at birds today, we see an amazing array of rainbow colours, some are brown, red, blue, green and even a mixture of all of these colours. These colours help them hide, find mates, and even scare predators away. The question is, where did all of these magnificent colours come from?

In a Zulu story we find the answer.

Long ago, when the world was still new, all the birds were the same colour, a dark blueish black. The birds were not worried by their similar appearance and so thought nothing of it. They knew no different.

One day little Hornbill was flying high up in the sky and spied a juicy worm far below him. He swooped down in a great anticipation of this juicy meal that had presented itself so easily to him. He came in low and tried to grab the worm between his claws, but missed. He had not noticed a thorn from the tree above him and grabbed this instead. The thorn pierced his skin and he cried out in anguish.

All of his friends came to see how he was and they saw it was just a small thorn so they went on their way. His brother stayed by his side though. The days passed and his wound grew worse and worse. Every day his friends would bring him some food and water. Only Starling did not care for the condition of Hornbill and he never came to visit.

Poor Hornbill was in great pain and even when great Martial Eagle took him flying, it could not alleviate his pain so Martial laid him in the nest of the kind Hamerkop who had many rooms to spare in his large abode. This was good for Hornbill but did not help the swelling of his foot.

They had tried massaging the foot, putting water on it, keeping it warm but nothing seemed to help. Each day the foot grew worse until the whole lands birds had come close to mourn their friend, who they though, was surely going to pass, all but Starling who was still wandering around looking for his own food. In his grief, Hornbill’s brother tried the last thing that he could and pierced his brothers foot.

The swelling exploded in a mass of colours that drenched all the birds in the vicinity. Some got blue, yellow, brown and other got a mix of these. Some got spots and some got stripes, but all of those who came to see their friend got some colour. All but Starling who as far away occupied in his own thoughts and so he stayed the same dark bluish black colour.