THE yellowbilled stork is found in KZN after the onset of the summer rain season, and is thus a non-breeding inter-Africa migrant.
Hence it is found here from October to April.
Its habitat is inland waters, including rivers, dams, floodplains, marshes and less often, estuaries.
It is usually gregarious and is found in small parties but is rarely solitary.
The stork forages by walking slowly in shallow water, with its bill immersed and slightly open, its foot stirring to disturb prey which is caught by feel. It spends much of the daytime standing quietly on the shoreline.
It roosts communally on sandbanks or in trees.
The stork’s preferred food comprises of fish, frogs, insects, worms, crustaceans and small mammals. It is usually silent at nest, has a squeaky whine and scream and bill clattering.
The colonial nests are a platform of sticks lined with finer material, about 1m in diameter which is built in seven to 10 days by both sexes. It lays two to three eggs which are a dull white.
Incubation lasts around 30 days and the young are nestlings for at least 55 days, being fed by both parents.
The tribal name is Nepando and in Afrikaans is known as Nimmersat.
