Wood Stork 40D0042348

Wood Stork (Mycteria americana)

The Wood Stork is a large American wading bird in the stork family Ciconiidae. The adult is a large bird typically 1 m tall with a 1.5 m wingspan and weighing 2.4 kg. It appears all white on the ground, with blackish-gray legs and pink feet. In flight, the trailing edge of the wings is black. The head is dark brown with a bald, black face, and the thick downcurved bill is dusky yellow. Juvenile birds are a duller version of the adult, generally browner on the neck, and with a paler bill.

This is a subtropical and tropical species which breeds in much of South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The Wood Stork is the only stork that presently breeds in North America. In the United States there is a small and endangered breeding population in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, along with a recently discovered rookery in southeastern North Carolina.

The Wood Stork is a broad-winged soaring bird that flies with its neck outstretched and legs extended. It forages usually where lowering water levels concentrate fish in open wetlands; they also frequent rice paddies. Wood storks walk slowly and steadily in shallow water up to the belly seeking prey, which, like that of most of their relatives, consists of fish, frogs and large insects. They catch fish by holding their bill open in the water until a fish is detected.

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