Anita’s Blog – Big White Birds
Updated: 12 hours ago
A small contingent of big birds flew over the resaca. I’d not-so-patiently been watching a dead tree where our summer-lingering juvenile male osprey perches over the resaca of a morning, so I was camera ready.
To my surprise, the big birds were wood storks. Birds I haven’t seen for nearly five years.
Days later, driving into Los Fresnos from the north, I saw a beautiful sight. I couldn’t return home quickly enough to get my camera and drive back.
A whole pond full of wood storks! More precisely, the west resaca of the Los Fresnos Nature Park was amass with wood storks.
I parked in the adjacent Memorial Park lot, across the highway from Los Fresnos High School, which is next to Los Fresnos Nature Park, on FM 1847, Paredes Line Road, if you want to take a little road trip. By October they may be gone.
My intent was to take establishing shots with my phone camera and then close-ups, using the long lens. Unfortunately, the wood storks were spooked; not from the noisy, heavy road traffic, but my presence on the sidewalk, where I was partially hidden by trees and other vegetation and even though I was barely creeping along.
The phone camera wouldn’t do. About half of the wood storks took flight, but briefly. A few headed to treetops but most of them did an about-face and landed a few yards further away, facing the opposite direction – and still wary. I sidled past the clearing and another bank of trees and stood quietly on the sidewalk, waiting for them to feel safe again.
I didn’t stay long because I’d interrupted their feeding. I got several photos, quietly thanked the wood storks and went back to my car.
The wood stork is federally classified as an endangered species and is listed as a threatened species in Texas, according to the Texas Breeding Bird Atlas. They are on the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department’s Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) list. Here’s the link to their new and improved resource: https://txswap.org/
Wood storks are large water birds. They stand nearly four feet tall, their plumage is nearly all white. In flight their shiny black feathers are visible along the entire trailing edge of their wings and tail. Their head and upper neck is devoid of feathers, just gray rough, scaly skin. Their legs and bill are black; they have pink feet.
A fun photo op is a landing shot just as they touch down while the white feathers are still shimmering and the black ones full out like the Angel of Death. It's more dynamic when one is singled out.
In flight, wood storks spread their five-foot wingspan, soar high in the sky, necks outstretched and obvious bills projected straight forward, their long legs stretched out behind. To get airborne they use powerful, steady wing beats. At high altitudes, their flight is an energy-saving, motionless glide with slow, deliberate wingbeats.
To see wood storks in September, in the Rio Grande Valley, they are most likely heading south toward Mexico and Central or South America. Wood storks breed during late winter and spring, not in Texas, but elsewhere. During summer, in what is called post-breeding dispersal, populations in Mexico and further south, especially juveniles, wander widely north (to Texas) and inland, looking for new feeding areas. By September and October, they are finishing their foraging and begin heading south again as far as Argentina.
For now, check out receding freshwater bodies, like shallow ponds, small city lakes, local resacas, mud flats, marshes and possibly irrigation ditches. Call your favorite local parks and ask about musters or clusters of wood storks, to use their collective nouns.
Especially take advantage of dropping water levels in ponds and resacas, like at the Los Fresnos Nature Park because fish and other prey become stranded and abundant and easy catch.
Wood storks, when feeding, wade slowly, with head down, bill submerged and partly open. When a prey touches the inside of the bill, it snaps shut. They raise their head and swallow food whole. Small fish make up the majority of their diet. They also eat crawfish, crabs, freshwater shrimp, large aquatic insects, frogs, small snakes, small turtles, frogs, rodents, and baby alligators.
If you want to see what other birds you could possibly see here and when, check out this Texas Parks & Wildlife Department’s pdf.
The pdf is a Field Checklist of the South Texas Brushlands, which encompasses more than just the Rio Grande Valley, and it includes the water birds. For a quick look, check the left column for the initials G & S. G is for “Primarily found in the Gulf coastal portion of region” and S for “Primarily found in the southern portion of region.”
An asterisk (*) denotes if the species breeds or has bred in the area covered by this checklist. The columns at the right show species you can expect to be in the Valley October through December. Check out the legend on page 3 for a comprehensive field use.
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