Painted Stork
These tall colorful birds look like they have sat in a pot of pink paint. It is these feathers that gives this stork its descriptive name. Their long distinctive yellow beaks can sense when prey is near. They half open their beaks and swish them from side to side in the water. If they snap at any nearby fish, frog, worm or aquatic insect that they disturb. They also use their feet to disturb the river or lake bed. They are social birds and roost in waterside trees with other storks and water birds.
They use their long wingspan like a glider. Once they are airborne they search out rising late morning thermals and effortlessly rise up in the sky with their wings stretched out. This way they move to different feeding grounds without having to spend to much energy and calories. Gliding is a more economic form of flying compared with flapping your wings.
Breeding season is normally October to November. Look up in the top of the trees to see if you can spot any giant stick nests. They will probably be stork nests, The female Painted Stork normally lays between two to five eggs. The mother sits on the eggs for about four weeks and the chicks fledge in in a further two months. The chicks are liable to predation by crows, hawkes and eagles. The parents have to be on their guard. The parents feed their young by regurgitating fish they have caught. They live for over twenty years.
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