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For the Love Of Nature, Art and Bad Humor
A Comic Gallery of Creative Expression in the Pursuit of Knowledge
Wood Storks
Mycteria americana
(Wood Ibis, Flinthead, Stonehead, Ironhead, Gourdhead)
A subtropical/tropical bird species native to the
Americas and Caribbean. They feature: bald heads, backwards knees, and a habit of pooping on
themselves and vomiting on their babies.
A little different from the typical vision of storks -
graceful, poop-free symbols of luck, springtime, and bringers of blissful newborn human-nugget joy bundles.
Given the vomiting-on-babies situation, you might not want Mr. Poop Legs delivering yours. And you might question his parenting techniques. But despite your understandable suspicions, wood storks are excellent parents.
In fact, they're
so dedicated to
parenting that they
won't even leave the
nest to escape
the scorching
midday sun.
Instead, to cool off, they defecate on their own
(vascular) legs - the evaporating poop creates a cooling effect. Regurgitating water on their babies keeps them
cool too. Gross, but sweet relief.
They're social, three-foot-tall wading birds with scaly
bald heads, long curved bills, backwards-looking knees,
and long, sometimes poop-covered legs.
They're found solo or in groups around wetlands,
swamps, ponds, and fresh or brackish marshes -
walking slowly, heads down, beaks slightly open,
searching for lunch. When they feel something touch
their bill, it snaps shut in 25 milliseconds.
The fastest reflex studied in birds ever!
Their menu includes fish, crustaceans, invertebrates, small reptiles and mammals, plants, and seeds - all swallowed whole, digested, and turned into future cooling showers.
Poop is useful for nest-building too. Both parents gather sticks and build large, bulky stick nests, 3–5 feet wide,
over 2–3 days. They line them with greenery and... poop, which dries into an excellent glue.
They nest in winter or spring in cypress or mangrove rookeries alongside other storks, egrets, and herons. They lay 1–5 eggs and take turns incubating them for about 30 days. Both parents feed the vomit-covered babies too.
For the first 5 weeks, parents take turns guarding the nest while the other forages.
At 8 weeks, chicks take short flights but return to be fed, vomited on, and to sleep.
By 11 weeks, the parents are empty nesters.
By that point, usually only one nestling makes it this far - predators, nest collapse, and food shortages take the rest.
The parents will then part ways but return to nest in the same area next year, but not usually with the same partner.
By age 3–4, young storks are ready to be parents themselves, teaching the next generation the art of stork
DIY body-fluid air conditioning.
They're often seen soaring high on thermals, like vultures.
But even being excellent fliers doesn't save them
from predators, disease, pesticide poisoning,
collisions with cars and power lines.
It also didn't help that time when their feathers
became a popular addition to women's hats.
Luckily, that trend hasn't made a comeback.
They're now federally protected due to the loss of thousands of acres of wetland habitat and disruptions
to the hydrologic patterns of what remains. Since wood storks time their nesting to wetland water levels, those disruptions have caused many nesting colonies to fail, and their numbers have dropped drastically over the years.
Was it the stress of environmental change
that made them bald?
No. But these excellent birds, and their home
deserve protection, so they can keep pooping on
their own feet for generations to come.
References:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Wood_Stork/overview#
https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/wood-stork
https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/profiles/birds/waterbirds/wood-stork/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_stork
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/facts/wood-stork
Special thanks to Jay Exum, Ph.D. Wildlife Ecology for his expert fact checking!
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