This is not a sighting, other than a review of the video.

First of all, many thanks to all my friends on this listserv for allowing me to vicariously enjoy the visit of the young wood storks to my neck of the woods, less than 30 miles from our farm, as the stork flies (somewhat farther by road.) During this entire episode I have been away, working in southern California so we can afford to farm. It figures. I suppose this is payback for the time a few years ago when the black-throated gray warbler dropped into Dawes Arboretum, similarly nearby. I got to see that one day wonder when many didn't. Now, many of you have enjoyed the storks while I have been over 2300 miles away.

Comments about the wonderful habitat remind me to extol the virtues of eastern Ohio to those of you who don't often visit. It is a place with many marvelous nooks and crannies, and very different from most of the rest of the state.

I would like to extend particular thanks to Sandy Brown, who posted the video on youtube.com. This provided me a true vicarious thrill, getting to watch them feed. If they are still there when I am back on the 9th I will definitely make the trip. Great birds! As for their occurrence, it reminds me quite a bit of the appearance of the post-nesting roseate spoonbills at Rocky Fork Lake a few years back.

A couple observers (including Sandy) have wondered at the extended wing behavior during feeding. By the way, all three storks show this behavior in Sandy's video clip. The first two use the right wing, and the third uses the left. Questions have been raised whether the birds are shading the water, herding prey, or simply exciting prey movement ala reddish egrets. I believe it has more to do with balance. The water in this pond appears quite turbid, and I don't think the prey is likely to respond much to the visual stimulus of wing movements or created shade at all. It is more as if the storks are probing laterally in the bottom sediment with their long bills, and, standing on their long legs, they use an extended wing as a counter-balance, kind of like a high-wire aerialist using a pole. 

The birds seem to be mucking around the bottom trying to stir up activity and food. Has anyone actually seen what they are eating? Fish? Crayfish? Tadpoles? It looks like a completely different strategy than the stealth technique employed by a fishing heron.

I have seen this before. Back in the nineties I was a member of the crew on a research ship moored at Fernandina Beach, Florida. There was a wonderful colony of storks (at least 4 nests) in the adjacent marsh and I watched them quite a lot. They often fed by moving along the shoreline during tidal surges or ebbs, striking at whatever passed. I noticed that sandpipers gave them a wide berth while they would feed right alongside the herons. However, storks also would wade into the water and muck around the bottom using the behavior seen in the video of the Ohio birds. Sometimes they would extend a single wing. If it was anything other than a counter-balance I think we would see both wings out.

Just my two-cent's worth. Great birds! Thanks to everyone involved, including the birds!

Bob Evans
Geologist, etc.
Hopewell

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