Painted Stork

A single Painted Stork Mycteria leucocephala, one of twenty which we saw today, standing on the mud embankment which separates the saltpans at Pak Thale (this embankment is known locally as a bund).

Painted Stork is widely distributed over the plains of Asia. They are found south of the Himalayan ranges and are bounded on the west by the Indus River system where they are rare and extend eastwards into South-east Asia. They are absent from very dry or desert regions, dense forests and the higher hill regions. They prefer freshwater wetlands in all seasons, but also use irrigation canals and crop fields, particularly flooded rice fields during the monsoon. They are resident in most regions but make seasonal movements. Young birds may disperse far from their breeding sites as demonstrated by a juvenile ringed at a nest in Keoladeo National Park (Bharatpur in India / jc) that was recovered 800 kilometres away at Chilka in eastern India.

Reference: Wikipedia.

Although one of the most abundant of the Asian storks, Painted Stork is classified as Near Threatened because it is thought to be undergoing a moderately rapid population decline owing primarily to hunting, wetland drainage and pollution. The estimated population size is 16,000 – 24,000 and its distribution size (breeding/resident): 6,090,000 km2.

Reference: BirdLife International (2017) Species factsheet: Mycteria leucocephala. Downloaded from BirdLife on 18/01/2017.