page_title: Wood stork
section_title: Feeding
hierarchical_section_title: Wood stork / Behaviour / Feeding
caption_attribution_description: FIELD MARKS-large,long-legged bird; white body,black flight feathers and tail, black legs and pink feet thick,dusky,downward-curving bill adult has bald, blackish gray head; juvenile has grayish brown head and yellow bill
context_page_description: The wood stork is a large American wading bird in the stork family Ciconiidae. It was formerly called the "wood ibis", though it is not an ibis. It is found in subtropical and tropical habitats in the Americas, including the Caribbean. In South America, it is resident, but in North America, it may disperse to as far as Florida. Originally described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, this stork likely evolved in tropical regions. The head and neck are bare of feathers and dark grey in colour. The plumage is mostly white, with the exception of the tail and some of the wing feathers, which are black with a greenish-purplish sheen. The juvenile differs from the adult, with the former having a feathered head and a yellow bill, compared to the black adult bill. The sexes are similar.
  The habitat of the wood stork can vary, but it must have a tropical or subtropical climate with fluctuating water levels. The one metre in diameter nest is found in trees, especially mangroves and those of the genus Taxodium, usually surrounded by water or over water. The wood stork nests colonially. The nest itself is made from sticks and greenery.
context_section_description: During the dry season, the wood stork eats mostly fish, supplemented by insects. During the wet season, on the other hand, fish make up about half the diet, crabs make up about 30%, and insects and frogs make up the rest. The wood stork eats larger fish more often than smaller fish, even in some cases where the latter is more abundant. It is estimated that an adult wood stork needs about 520 grams (1.15 lb) per day to sustain itself. For a whole family, it is estimated that about 200 kilograms (440 lb) are needed per breeding season.
  The wood stork usually forages in flocks when not breeding, and alone and in small groups when it is breeding. In the dry season, this bird generally forages by slowly walking forward with its bill submerged in the water while groping for food. During the wet season, this method is used about 40% of the time to catch food. During this period, foot stirring, where the stork walks very slowly with the bill in water while pumping its foot up and down before every step, is used about 35% of the time. Both these hunting methods are non-visual.
  Because of its non-visual foraging methods, the wood stork requires shallow water and a high density of fish to forage successfully. The water that it forages in during the dry season averages about 17 centimetres (6.7 in) in depth, while during the wet season, the water usually is about 10 centimetres (3.9 in) deep. In the dry season, this stork prefers to forage in waters with no emergent vegetation, whereas in the wet season, it prefers areas with vegetation emerging between 10 and 20 centimetres (3.9 and 7.9 in) above the surface on average. This bird can travel over 80 kilometres (50 mi) to reach foraging sites, lending it access to a wide variety of habitats.
  Both parents feed the chicks by regurgitating food onto the nest floor. The chicks are mainly fed fish that are between 2 and 25 centimetres (0.79 and 9.84 in) in length, with the length of the fish usually increasing as the chicks get older. The amount of food that the chicks get changes over time, with more being fed daily from hatching to about 22 days, when food intake levels off. This continues until about 45 days, when food consumption starts to decrease. Overall, a chick eats about 16.5 kilograms (36 lb) before it fledges.
caption: A wood stork foraging
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