Birders aflutter over mystery of storks

THE Nelson Mandela Bay birding network is humming with the news of the Summerstrand sighting of a dozen openbill storks from the African tropics.

Nobody knows why the storks are here and speculation ranges from a bumper breeding season up north, and consequent dispersal spike, to the heavy rains which might have flooded their usual feeding grounds.

The startling sighting in Port Elizabeth is the cherry on the top for birders, who first reported the appearance of the storks in the Eastern Cape, in Addo, in December last year. Until then, there was no record of the species ever having appeared in this province, senior local birder Dr Paul Martin said yesterday.

“The species is widely distributed north of us, but until now records have shown fewer than 100 breeding pairs in South Africa, all in the north of the Kruger National Park and KwaZulu Natal.

“There seems to have been a population and dispersal explosion of some kind because they have been spotted recently from Gauteng to the Karoo to the Cape peninsula – and now here.”

Following the sighting of a single bird in Addo, others had been seen at Flat Rocks, in Happy Valley and in the Swartkops area in Port Elizabeth, but the Summerstrand flock was definitely the biggest seen since they arrived in the Eastern Cape, Martin said.

The birds are moving around from the open land off Strandfontein Drive across to Erasmus Drive, tucking into giant African snails which appeared in abundance yesterday afternoon.

One of the stork’s most distinctive features is its large bill, characterised by a “nut-cracker gape”, just right for cracking open snail shells and extricating the tasty bits. Although it is still widespread on the continent north of the Limpopo, it is under pressure from pesticides and development of wetlands.

Martin said local birders were very excited about its appearance here. “This is unprecedented. There is lots of speculation, but no one really knows why they’re here. The question now is what they are going to do. Will they stay around or will they just one day disappear again like the marabous?”

Another species normally restricted to the tropical north, the marabou stork, appeared at Addo in the form of a single bird in 2004, and then again last year, as a flock, on the Humewood golf course, and at Addo. Since then, they have disappeared.

Source: Weekend Post (http://www.weekendpost.co.za/article.aspx?id=521123)