STANDING bout 1.2m tall, the white stork breeds in Eurasia and visits Southern Africa as a palaeartic, non-breeding migrant in summer.
Their numbers are declining, possibly due to the use of pesticides for locust and other insect control.
The white stork’s voice is a weak hiss with some bill clattering at the nest.
Its habitat is the Highveld grasslands, mountain meadows, cultivated lands, marshes and the Karoo.
They are usually gregarious in loose flocks of up to several hundred birds, especially where there are large concentrates of food like locust plagues.
It forages by walking slowly across the veld, also wading in shallow marshlands.
It soars well, spiralling high on thermals. Flocks gather in late summer before the northward migration.
They also gather in groups around midday. In hot weather, they defecate on their legs for cooling, turning the colour from red to white or pink.
They are highly extralimital, laying eggs and building nests in the northern hemisphere.
The Zulu name is uNowanga and in Afrikaans, witooievaar.
