The pink-tinged stork with a red face
The yellow-billed stork is a fairly common southern African resident and partial intra-African migrant.
VISITORS to our more eastern game reserves who stop at waterholes, dams, estuaries and pans will often spot a pink-tinged wading bird with a red face and bright yellow bill.
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No, it is not a strange sort of pink flamingo. It is the yellow-billed stork, a fairly common southern African resident and partial intra-African migrant.
Here are some facts and figures about this eye-catching bird.
* When this bird takes off, you will notice it has black on its wings and tail.
* You will mainly find it at inland waters where this gregarious creature gathers in small parties
* It forages by walking slowly in shallow water with its bill immersed and held slightly open, It uses its feet to stir the water and to disturb its prey, which it catches by feel.
* It spends most of the day quietly on the shoreline and roosts communally on sandbanks or in trees. Often is seen in the company of other wading birds.
* This stork eats fish, frogs, insects, worms, crustaceans and even small mammals.
* It breeds colonially, often with other storks, herons, egrets, ibises and cormorants, building large stick platforms in tall trees or on buildings.
Source: Roberts’; Birds of Southern Africa and Sasol Birds of Southern Africa.
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