Asian open-billed stork
Nest building behaviour is often associated with courtship and pair formation in birds. The degree to which this behaviour is used in courtship varies from mere manipulation of a piece of nest material or display of a potential nest site to the building of an entire nest by the male individual.
Both the partners of a pair carried the nesting materials together during the initial stage of nest construction. Males contributed more to find and fetch the materials, while the females took charge of manipulation at the nest.
Nest materials consisted of green branches, sticks and grasses. It was possible to identify 8 plant species among the constructing materials brought to the nest. Fresh leaves of Dumur (Ficus glomerata), Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus citriodora), Jarul (Lagerstoemia speciosa), Kadamba (Anthocephalus indicus), Durba Grass (Cynodon dactylon) and Mutha Grass (Cyperus rotundus) were used more commonly in nest formation.
Asian open-billed stork - Anastomus oscitans (Shamukh Khol in Bengal) in the Raiganj Wildlife Sanctuary (Kulik Bird Sanctuary)
A resident colonial breeder distributed in tropical Southeast Asia. During monsoon period, the Kulik river enters the sanctuary, which supports a wide variety of food for the open billed stork. The main diet of the bird is apple snail, Pila globosa or other types of snail which grows in large number in the smaller or larger water bodies surrounding Kulik.
Every year large number of this bird species come in the sanctuary only for breeding purpose. According to the field report prepared by the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), more than 100,000 storks came to Kulik during 2018, forming one of the World’s largest concentrations of this group!
Interesting Read:
Images of Bengal, India
Asian open-billed stork
Nest building behaviour is often associated with courtship and pair formation in birds. The degree to which this behaviour is used in courtship varies from mere manipulation of a piece of nest material or display of a potential nest site to the building of an entire nest by the male individual.
Both the partners of a pair carried the nesting materials together during the initial stage of nest construction. Males contributed more to find and fetch the materials, while the females took charge of manipulation at the nest.
Nest materials consisted of green branches, sticks and grasses. It was possible to identify 8 plant species among the constructing materials brought to the nest. Fresh leaves of Dumur (Ficus glomerata), Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus citriodora), Jarul (Lagerstoemia speciosa), Kadamba (Anthocephalus indicus), Durba Grass (Cynodon dactylon) and Mutha Grass (Cyperus rotundus) were used more commonly in nest formation.
Asian open-billed stork - Anastomus oscitans (Shamukh Khol in Bengal) in the Raiganj Wildlife Sanctuary (Kulik Bird Sanctuary)
A resident colonial breeder distributed in tropical Southeast Asia. During monsoon period, the Kulik river enters the sanctuary, which supports a wide variety of food for the open billed stork. The main diet of the bird is apple snail, Pila globosa or other types of snail which grows in large number in the smaller or larger water bodies surrounding Kulik.
Every year large number of this bird species come in the sanctuary only for breeding purpose. According to the field report prepared by the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), more than 100,000 storks came to Kulik during 2018, forming one of the World’s largest concentrations of this group!
Interesting Read:
Images of Bengal, India