Another almost all-white bird that’s been a little more harder to get a nice opportunity with is the Wood Stork. I’ve seen them, dotting the swamps or mangroves, but always at a distance or somewhere I can’t stop to photograph.
Wood Stork in flight
Finally, a couple days ago late afternoon I spotted one close enough to give a try.
Wood Stork profile
I’ll continue to stay on the hunt for more close ops of this elegant, unique looking bird. 🙂
Update: I follow Birder’s Journey and was pleasantly surprised her post and mine featured the same bird this morning, the Wood Stork. Don’t you just love and it make you smile when that happens to you?!
Birder’s Journey included the italicized info below in her post that I was unaware of and want to further share with you.
“The Wood Stork is North America’s only native Stork (Florida Fish & Wildlife-Wood Stork). Once abundant in Florida, the destruction and degradation of wetlands caused their numbers to drop significantly, and they were placed on the Endangered Species List in 1984. After 30 years, conservation efforts resulted in the Wood Storks’ status being changed to Threatened in 2014.
Though we have many nesting Wood Storks now in our wetlands, they are still at risk due to on-going concerns over development and habitat loss in the Everglades and other parts of South Florida (Scientific American, June 26, 2014; Florida Audubon).”
😞 I hadn’t had a chance to learn much about the Wood Stork, just wanted to be sure to gather more photos of this unique bird to my archives before we left Florida. I just researched quickly to see if I could find the Wood Stork’s present status and things are looking up for their numbers, although they are still on the Endangered Species List. Here’s a map I found of colonies tracked from 2009 to 2018.
Courtesy USFWS North Florida Ecological Services Office
