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Yellow-billed Stork – Mycteria ibis
Yellow-billed Stork – Mycteria ibis
The yellow-billed stork is a large African wading stork species, also known as wood stork or wood ibis.
It lives in regions of south of the Sahara and also in Madagascar.
From a long distance it looks a lot like a white stork. Up close, the confusion is impossible because of the red bare skin on the anterior half of the head and long yellow beak. The plumage is pinkish, the beak is dull gray, yellow facial skin. Legs are gray hence the unlikely confusion with other Ciconiidae.
It frequents open countryside always located near a water source. Its privileged places are the mudflats of lakes, marshes, lagoons.
Their diet comprises mainly small, freshwater fish which they entirely swallow. They also feed on crustaceans, worms, aquatic insects, frogs and occasionally small mammals and birds.
