This year may have been the best for the future of the Wood Storks.
Rookeries that never had any storks now have nesting pairs almost everywhere. In 2016 they were right up there on the list of endangered species. There were 11 nestlings in South Carolina.
The delisting was official March 2026. Also the last count of nesting pairs was now 4,000 in South Carolina.
Ellen reminded me the other day how many times we visited the Wood Storks in Port Royal and just how many photographs we had sitting in folders. This year was the busiest rookery season for the big birds.
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Specs; OM-1 mk2, OM 100-400 ll, Lightroom, Topaz, DxO Color Efex, DxO Filmpack.
Here’s something I had never thought about until I watched a Wood Stork try to drink water. These birds are too big to just bend down.
Birds knees bend in the exact opposite direction as a mammal. Add to that a Stork is pretty darn huge!
At some point this poor bird was lying in the water to drink.
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So, when was the last time you saw a 3 foot baby bird 😳.
I love them, but I don’t think I’d like them showing up at my bird feeder.
Just for perspective I added an adult from the same day.
I guess if you’re sitting around all day waiting for an egg to hatch it gets pretty boring.
Might as well watch that guy walking back and forth.
I think that’s called ‘people watching’ 😂.
I thought I had missed all the shots of this close fly by Wood Stork!
When this Stork jumped in the air I didn’t have any time to set anything. All the shots proved it too. Wings were chopped, a missing head, and dead colors when he turned. I remember the only good thing about the shots was the Tricolored Heron ‘flipping out’ in the background.
Moving files around I discovered this one. Not bad either.
Best viewed large.
Wood Storks sit up high in these swamp trees. Below them are smaller wading birds nesting nests. To take off the big Storks just jump in the air glide by, no matter who or what is in their way 😆😆
I was just having a conversation with Ellen on various editing software and what I was feeling about using ON1, plugins for Lightroom, and Adobe in general. No sooner had we discussed this I went to post an article for tomorrow…and this shot was next in line.
Lightroom is my standard editor, but not everything must be done there. In fact this photograph had very little except for being in the image catalog. Adobe seems to be moving away from plugins, this was post processing in software by plugins.
Something else to think about…
Image finished in; Lightroom catalog, Topaz DeNoise, DxO Filmpack, ON1.
No little Chippies here. Massive trees are common in the Lowcountry. The super sized birds fit in like they’re Sparrows.
