Wood Stork

Fascinating facts about the Wood Stork

• A wood stork can stand up to 115 cm tall and spread its wings over 180 cm. Males weigh 2.5-3.3 kg (mean 2.7 kg) while females are slightly lighter at 2.0-2.8 kg (mean 2.42 kg).
• Wood storks build massive one-metre-diameter nests that can hold a central green platform about 28 cm across, and they sometimes stack up to 25 nests in a single tree. These towering, communal structures protect eggs from ground predators and create a safe micro-climate for the chicks.
• A whole family can need roughly 200 kg of food for a single season, while each adult must eat about 520 g daily to stay healthy. This huge appetite drives the stork to travel over 80 km to find shallow, fish-rich waters, linking distant wetlands through its foraging trips.
• Wood storks can glide for up to 24 km without flapping once they reach an altitude of at least 610 m, saving energy for long trips to feeding sites. This soaring ability lets them cover the 80 km distances they need to reach productive foraging grounds while conserving calories.
• Wood stork chicks hatch weighing just 62 g and must survive a vulnerable first two weeks, during which about 31 % of nests produce at least one fledged bird. This low success rate highlights how predation by raccoons and caracaras, plus nest failures, shape the species' population dynamics and why protecting nesting trees is critical.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia

At a glance

About the Wood Stork

In the misty dawn of the wetlands, the Wood Stork emerges as a spectral figure, its snowy plumage glowing like a beacon as it wades through the shallows with deliberate, stately ease. With each slow, sweeping motion of its long, ungainly legs, it seems to be savoring the hunt, its sharp, sensitive bill probing the murky waters with a patience that belies its lightning-fast strike. As it rises into the sky, its broad wings beating with a slow, powerful rhythm, the Wood Stork embodies a serene and ancient elegance, a true monarch of the marshes.

More birds to discover

Browse Feravox