The state of Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources has announced that the number of Wood Stork nests state-wide is higher this year than any other year since aerial nest surveys began in the early 1990s. The count of more than 2,500 broke the previous record of about 2,200, and is attributed to poor weather early in the breeding season in Florida, which caused at least some storks to relocate and attempt a new nest in Georgia. Here’s hoping the Wood Stork continues on its comeback trail.
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.
Well, frankly Corey, that’s not exactly brilliant news, is it?
If the increase is not caused by an overall population increase in the US but by a relocation of birds because the breeding season was so bad in Florida, then one might presume that the overall population in the US had not the best of breeding years?
Although I do confess to not having followed the link due to time constrains and not knowing enough – well, anything really – about Wood Stork population dynamics.
Heck, I haven’t even seen a Wood Stork…
🙂
Yeah, it’s really more of an illustration as to why bird populations have to be looked at on a large scale.