Woolly-necked Stork
Ciconia microscelis
🔍 Enlarge Here all year
What it sounds like
Almost silent. What you hear instead is a dry clattering as it snaps its bill. Storks have very little voice and do most of their talking this way.
How to recognise it
Large, glossy dark, with a bare black cap, a deep red eye and the thick white woolly neck that names it. The long dark bill has a dull red tip. Its story here is remarkable: in the 1980s there were perhaps thirty breeding pairs in the whole country, confined to Kruger and northern Zululand, and it was described as shy. It is now a familiar sight across urban KwaZulu-Natal, nesting over neighbourhood streets, hunting toads along verges and standing about on roofs, railings and swimming-pool surrounds. People often call it a crane: a stork flies with its neck stretched straight out, a heron folds its neck back into an S, and true cranes are grassland birds that do not perch on buildings at all.
Seen in Manor Gardens
1 sighting logged by neighbours.
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30 September 2023 While eating my late lunch I spotted this beautiful bird visible from my balcony.
