Storks | Ciconiiformes

Ooievaarachtigen | Cigüeñas

Large, long-legged birds with a long neck and a heavy, long bill, which take their food while walking in shallow water, wet grassland and on arable fields. They fly with the neck stretched out and the legs projecting well beyond the tail, on broad wings with deeply fingered tips, and cover long distances by soaring on thermals rather than by flapping. The voice box is much reduced: adults call seldom and feebly, and keep contact mainly by means of the bill. The young hatch downy but helpless and stay in the nest for weeks.

Families in this order

Storks | Ciconiidae2 speciesThe bill is straight and pointed and serves both for probing in shallow water and for seizing prey on dry land; the menu runs from frogs, lizards and mice to large insects and refuse from rubbish tips. At the nest the birds clatter the bill with the head thrown far back; this clattering takes the place of song. They void onto their own legs to keep cool, which often leaves them looking whitewashed rather than red. The nest is a bulky heap of sticks on a roof, pole, crag or treetop, reused for years and growing ever heavier; the young are fed by the parents disgorging food onto the nest floor.