Last Thursday a small group of us carried out our regular Black-necked (Satin)
Stork survey in the Clarence Valley, North Coast NSW. The aim was to check on
a number of breeding pairs and to attempt to find some colour-banded birds that
had been seen earlier. By the end of the day we had observed 19 Storks, 10
adults, 1 immature, 2 juveniles and 6 nestlings. One adult female was spearing
a fairly small Short-necked Turtle and kept getting the reptile stuck on the
tip of her bill. She eventually swallowed it. On Saturday I went back to
Gilletts Ridge to attempt to find the two juveniles and one immature that were
seen on Thursday. At least one of these birds had colour bands. I didn't find
these birds but did find the resident adult pair with their recently fledged
juvenile. I had attempted to catch and colour band this juvenile a couple of
weeks earlier by using a cherry picker to access the nest but it took off and
flew quite strongly to a nearby wetland. These three birds were additional to
the birds that we recorded on Thursday, making 22 individual Storks observed
within 3 days. When you consider that estimates of the state population in the
1960s was 37-43 birds, this was quite an achievement for one river valley.
Greg Clancy
Coutts Crossing
NSW
==============================www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com
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