Storks: Birds with Broadsword Bills

Long-legged, large winged and often with dreadfully hunched postures, members of the stork clan are armed with massive broadsword bills, which they may “rattle” as a means of communication. Worldwide there are 19 stork species, 8 of which are found in India. Storks haunt marshy waterbodies and hunt fish, molluscs, crustaceans, small animals like reptiles, and pierce carrion with their formidable pincer-like bills. Some are picky eaters, like the open-billed stork (Anastomus oscitans) specialised in consuming snails. Depending on the species, they may nest colonially or singly. For instance, black-necked storks (Ephippiorhychus asiaticus) build enormous (two-metre diameter) twiggy edifices in which both parents raise 2-5 young, usually during the monsoon. They love soaring in circles on thermals, though some heavyweights like the greater adjutant (Leptoptilos dubius) might find take-off strenuous. Nearly all storks fly with their necks outstretched and legs fully extended. They are not at all vocal and communicate with grunts and beak rattles. Usually, they are dressed in black and white (with tints of green, bronze and purple), sometimes enlivened with a splash of colour — as is the case with the familiar painted stork (Mycteria leucophala), which sports a candy-floss pink tuft of feathers near its tail. Storks may be residential or migratory.

Painted storks: The painted stork stands some 93 cm tall and is armed with a huge wax-yellow broadsword bill with a very sensitive tip, as many storks have. The bills can snap shut in under 25 milliseconds when they sense prey in the muddy depths. Amazingly, they can differentiate between live prey and something inanimate, like a twig. Their somewhat domed profile and tiny eyes make them appear a trifle foolish, as indeed, one specimen at the Delhi Zoo clearly was as it stubbornly tried to swallow a fish that was patently too large to go down in a single gulp. These hunchbacked storks are locally migratory; moving to where the dining is good and in the National Zoological Park in Delhi at least, they turn up in August to breed, remaining there until March. Woolly white fledglings turn into raffish, dirty grey glowering adolescents whose parents protect them from the sun by shading them with half-unfurled wings. Parents arriving at a nest after a fishing trip will greet each other with a bill-clattering display and then pause as if in meditation, as the chicks freak out, before regurgitating half-digested fish on the nest floor, which their progeny fall upon like it were manna from heaven.

Open-billed stork:  The smaller open-billed stork, at around 68 cm, is a white and glossy greenish-black stork that is also quite common in India. Its USP is its curious bill — the upper and lower mandibles of which have a small gap between them, rather like the eye of a needle. These storks specialise in a diet of escargots (snails!), piercing their way into the creature with the sharp tip of their bills and relaxing their victim with the narcotic present in their saliva, which helps slip it out easily.

Woolly-necked storks: Woolly-necked storks (Ciconia episcopus) are black and white with red legs and stand 106 cm tall. They sport white necks, wear a black “skull cap”, and have a blackish bill, making them look rather like gangsters. They roost on tall trees, are not colonial nesters, and may be found in waterbodies deep in forests.

White stork: The smiling-faced white stork (Ciconia ciconia) is also around 106 cm tall and looks as though it’s been overly generous with the lipstick on its bill. It is a migrant arriving by September and leaving by April and is fairly common in northwest India. In parts of Europe (like the Netherlands), it is known to return to its nesting site (often the chimney atop houses) and has been regarded as the harbinger of good luck and babies!

Black storks: Black storks (Ciconia nigra), as tall as white and woolly-necked storks, are also migrants to northern India. They are glossy black above with white underparts and a red bill.

Black-necked stork: More formidable is the resident black-necked stork (135 cm tall). Standing on long red legs, it is armed with a fearsome black bill and has a black neck and pure white underparts. A broad black band running across its massive snow-white wings make it possible to identify the bird in flight, and the bird can often be seen circling high in the heavens on thermals. Males have brown irises, while females have lemon-yellow ones. They may nest singly on the tops of standalone trees in the middle of a field. I watched one ruthlessly disembowel and swallow a coot in Keoladeo National Park in Bharatpur, so I was quite apprehensive when another specimen at the Delhi Zoo began approaching me with a basilisk look in its eye! They are not abundant anywhere and rare in the south, stalking about in marshes, jheels, and rivers.

Lesser adjutant: The lesser adjutant (Leptoptilos javanicus) is a widespread resident bird, glossy black above, white below and sporting a few absurd hairs on its otherwise bald reddish-yellow head. It is between 120 and 130 cm tall and is armed with a massive wedge-shaped bill and a disgracefully hunched posture. Lesser adjutants haunt well-watered country and are usually solitary, and unlike their bigger (and unattractive) cousin (the greater adjutant), eschews our company.

Greater adjutant: Armed with a truly massive broadsword bill, the greater adjutant is the largest — and rarest — of our storks. Black, grey and dirty white, it has a naked red and yellow head and dangles a grotesque pink “gular pouch” from the base of its neck. At 130 to 150 cm tall, it walks with the measured gait of a military man on an inspection tour, hence the name. A carrion hunter by profession (though it will indulge in fish, small animals, rodents, amphibians, reptiles and even snaps up low-flying ducks), it is found chiefly in the Northeast; Assam being a stronghold. It has a worldwide population of just around 1,200 birds (according to the IUCN) and nests in Kaziranga National Park (and a few other places).

Its claim to fame, however, lies in its affinity for garbage dumps — especially where animal carcasses are dumped. The outskirts of Guwahati are known to provide one such hotspot. In the 19th century, greater adjutants thronged Kolkata, cleaning up the streets, and were honourably depicted in the city’s coat of arms (and then of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation). Better sanitation, alas, has been cited as one of the causes of their decline. For the massive greater adjutant, at least, cleanliness is not godliness!