The Saddle Billed Stork sure is one amazing bird of Africa, they mostly in vast open spaces around wetlands and bodies of water where they have access to their favorite meal FISH, but they also enjoy the occasional frog or crab. And when they find a good 'restaurant' they stick to it; because these birds are territorial.

That's not the only good thing these birds stick to when it comes to their life choices. The Saddle Billed Stork mates for life and also uses the same nest over and over:
🅸🆂🅽'🆃 🆃🅷🅰🆃 🅰🅼🅰🆉🅸🅽🅶?

Another thing that makes these lovely unique, is the fact that they don't communicate by singing and chirping like other birds, rather they clatter their bill. This communication mostly occurs when they are nesting, otherwise they are rather quiet.

𝔸ℕ𝔻 𝕋ℍ𝔼ℝ𝔼 𝕀𝕊 𝕄𝕆ℝ𝔼

While we are on the subject of nesting; When it come to the Saddle Billed Stork the responsibility of making the nest does not fall on the male bird alone as is the case with most other birds. The male and female of this species work together to construct their nest;

Firstly Choosing the location:

When it comes to choosing a location to build their nest in, I can assure you that these birds do not have an easy task at hand, it has o be close to their fishing grounds in a top bough of a tree, and the bough needs to have enough space to build a nest big enough nest to accommodate the whole bird in a sitting position. Each female Stork can lay up to 5 eggs. There after the parents will take turns incubating the eggs for the next 35 days.

Once the chicks are hatched, the responsibility fall yet again on both parents when it comes to feeding duties, and this is a good thing because these chicks needs to be fed until they reach their fledgling age, and that can take up to 100 days.

𝓨𝓞𝓤 𝓢𝓔𝓔 𝓣𝓔𝓐𝓜 𝓦𝓞𝓡𝓚 𝓜𝓐𝓚𝓔𝓢 𝓣𝓗𝓔 𝓓𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓜 𝓦𝓞𝓡𝓚

A Saddle-billed Stork in captivity is just over 30 years, and despite all these great qualities the Saddled Billed Stork managed to find its way onto the endangered species list in South Africa however their survival is slightly more stable in other countries.

None the less, I firmly believe that conservation starts with education!

A great deal of these birds natural habitat is under threat due to the urbanization and development and their impact on our wetlands, and especially pollution!

What can we do to help? That is an easy one! Just remember -R-R-R

Reduce

• Minimize the amount of items you purchase that is packaged in products that is harmful for the environment

Re-use

• Where possible try to reuse things such as plastic bags, bottles and containers in stead of just getting new ones.

Recycle

• Recycle your waste, and support recycled products.