Africa Wild

Feb 2016 around Nossob, Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

Puff Addy wrote: ↑Sun Apr 17, 2016 9:22 pm There are other characteristics which make it an Abdim's:

Bill shorter than Black Stork's and rises steeply up to its base on the forehead.

Two-tone legs with pinkish ankles and feet.

P.S. The illustrations of the species in question in the Sasol guide are quite poor.

https://youtu.be/6exTufskkbw

Janine Westerweel captured spectacular footage of a saddle-billed stork attacking a snake in Skukuza, Kruger National Park.

She told Latestsightings.com that "This is a first for us and a really exciting event." She says they eventually lost sight of the bird and don't know how the struggle ended. "I'm sure not very well for the snake though," she says, adding that they think the snake may have been a small python.

"My advice with game and bird-watching is always to be still, quiet and patient. You never know what will play out; or what will walk out of nowhere when you least expect it!" she adds.

Here in Lower Saxony, it is so dry that the white storks got rid of some of their youngsters from the nest
because they couldn't keep up with the feeding anymore.

How sad.

That's terrible

Dry in the north and wet in the south

WATCH: Black Storks Literally Get In One Another's Throats


https://youtu.be/PSq4SfARSEA

Black storks may seem a fairly intimidating species to other birds with those large beaks, and quite rightly so. It seems these two storks had gotten themselves into a squabble and made full use of their weapons to literally jump down one another’s throat.

Captured by Claudia Apfethaler, this duel on film, shared with latestsightings.com, was caught near the end of an uneventful, hot day as they headed toward the Paul Kruger Gate. Stopping over a small river on the S114, at the Biyamiti loop, the shenanigans in this video were seen unfolding.

With both birds literally using their beaks to pin each other down through the throat, it is amazing that both birds survived and went on about their separate ways.

I had never noticed, before my last trip to the Kruger, that the black plumage of the Saddle-billed Stork is iridescent, like the Black Stork's one.

Neither have I