Day: February 19, 2016

The Neighborhood Wood Stork

My dog Sophie can’t believe how big the birds are in Florida. Yes, that’s a six-pound wood stork over there! And looking at its fuzzy head, I can tell it’s a juvenile. This bashful bird is wary of the photographer inching along the grass to come just a little bit closer. He is one of a threatened species, the only breeding stork in North America, found in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. His biggest predator is the raccoon, who steals eggs from its nest.

#woodstork, #threatened, #stork, #bird, #wildlife
“Who me?” says the wood stork in Naples, Florida

Wood storks wade in lowland wetlands and look for fish, frogs and insects to eat. They shuffle their webbed feet in the shallow water to stir any aquatic critters to move, and then keep their bills in the water to catch dinner. That is a blue heron standing behind the wood stork.

#woodstork, #stork, #bird, #wildlife, #Florida, #swamp
Wood storks have interesting knees that bed backwards.

 

#woodstork, #stork, #bird, #florida, #swamp, #wildlife, #nature
Wood stork feeding in its favorite habitat, shallow swamp.

In my neighborhood in Naples, Florida, the wood stork shares the swamp with numerous heron, ibis, egrets, turtles, fish and alligators. Sophie, you’re not in Pennsylvania anymore.