Common Name: Wood Stork

Scientific Name: Mycteria americana

Local common names: Flinthead, Wood Ibis, PondGannet, Ciguena Americana, Tantale d’Amerique

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General Description: Wood Storks are the only stork found commonly in the United States, and are the largest and most distinctive of the wading birds in the country. Long-legged wading birds (order Ciconiiformes) generally have long legs, neck and bills, and typically feed and breed in shallowly inundated freshwater and coastal wetlands. Unlike many wading birds, the Wood Stork gropes and feels about with its bill to find food by touch. This allows it to forage in murky and vegetated conditions, but the foraging technique also requires high concentrations of prey to feed upon. Because of this dependency, storks have therefore been seen as indicators of the health or degradation of wetland animal communities. Wood Storks have declined in breeding population size by over 90% since the 1930’s, particularly in south Florida, and have been designated an endangered species in the southeastern U.S. since 1984.