Member Murmurings

Stork Trio and a Hamerkop

Storks commonly congregate to feed on the stranded fish in diminishing water bodies - it’s not unusual to see many different species combinations i.e. Yellow-billed Stork with African Spoonbill and Saddle-billed stork, or Marabou Stork with African Openbill.

Very often if African Fish Eagle are also present these may be challenged by Saddle-billed Stork and robbed of their meal, intimidated by the massive bill of the latter.

Recently we were priviledged to observe a special sighting of three species of stork which had gathered in a dwindling roadside pool, fed by a tributary to the Crocodile River in southern Kruger Park.

In this instance the replete Black Stork was perched alongside the pool, robbing me of the chance to get all three species in one photograph. This left two Woolly-necked, one female

Saddle-billed, and one Hamerkop still busy in the pool and gorging on several species of fish.

The Woolly-necked Storks strode around waving their bills in the water and caught a surprising number of tilapia (quite likely Mozambique tilapia) in this manner. Unfortunately they were not as adept at swiftly consuming them, and were invariably robbed by the Saddle-billed Stork, whose large gape swallowed them effortlessly.

The Saddle-billed modus operandi was to stride around stabbing into the muddy water, failing to catch tilapia, but invariably coming up with impaled barbel, which were consumed at a brisk rate. The little Hamerkop kept under the radar and feasted on barbel fingerlings undisturbed. At no stage were any platannas or other frogs caught in the half hour we watched. It was disappointing to not be able to observe how the Black Stork would have behaved within the group.

Text and Photos

Ingrid Weiersbye

Woolly-necked Stork, the skilled tilapia catchers

A Hamerkop keeping under the radar catching barbel fingerlings

Saddlebilled Stork - the barbel stabbers