Lets face it, not a lot of people spend time photographing and/or watching Wood Storks. They are not the most graceful of birds or the most beautiful. I started following the path of this one wood stork trying to watch and learn about its biology. It was very interesting to see how many different food sources it was able to pluck from the marsh grass.

As I came around to another part of the sanctuary I saw a few Wood Storks breaking branches off the surrounding trees in preparation for building a nest in the rookery. While these birds are awkward looking and not very graceful, you can see from this picture that they clearly have very good balance. This is particularly true given their really long legs. This bird uses them almost as stilts. I wish I had a chance to study the species while they were caring for their chicks. Maybe next year!

Images captured on Nikon D3x, 600mm f/4 on Lexar Digital Film.