White storks have a really long, pointed bill. The white stork can quickly open and shut the upper and lower parts of its bill. The bird uses its bill like tweezers, to snatch up small, fast-moving rodents and insects and slippery fish.

Wood storks and spoonbills both find food in shallow, muddy water, where it is difficult to see prey. These birds have bills that are very sensitive to touch. When they feel prey, their bill snaps closed so fast that the prey has no chance of escaping.

Herons locate their prey by sight before they spear it using their sharp bill. Shoebills use their large bill to catch large prey.

A flamingo uses its long neck to lower its head into shallow water. When its head is upside down, the flamingo “shakes” it from side to side, collecting food from the water in its curved bill.

Most storks are fairly silent birds. In general, birds make calls and songs with a sound-making organ at the bottom of their windpipe. This organ is called the syrinx (SIHR ihngks). The syrinx of storks is not as well developed as that of some other kinds of birds, however, and most species of stork are able to make only soft grunting, hissing, and whistling noises.

Even without a loud voice, storks can still make noise. They do this by clattering their bills. During breeding season, a male or female stork may make clattering noises with its bill to attract a mate.

Both the male and female of some species of stork have a pouch of skin that hangs from their neck. Storks use their throat pouch in mating displays (actions taken to attract attention). First, a stork throws its head backwards. This position makes the throat pouch tighten. This tightening causes the throat pouch to act as an amplifier—that is, it makes sound louder. Then the bird claps the upper and lower parts of its bill together to produce a loud rattling sound. People have described the sound as being similar to the noise made by a machine gun. Clattering can be heard from about 1⁄2 mile (1 kilometer) away.

Three kinds of stork are very helpful when it comes to keeping their surroundings clean. These are the marabou (MAR uh boo) of Africa and the greater adjutant (AJ uh tuhnt) and lesser adjutant of India and Southeast Asia. These storks eat carrion, the flesh of dead animals.

Marabous and adjutants find the carcasses (bodies of dead animals) by soaring around in the sky and searching the ground below. When they locate a carcass, they glide down toward it. Usually other carrion-eating birds, such as vultures, are also feeding on the carcass.

The answer is both yes and no. Because storks are large and heavy birds, getting up into the sky and staying there is hard work for them. If storks had to flap their wings a lot while flying, as smaller birds do, they would have a pretty hard time. But storks have found a way to fly high and far without having to work so hard. When storks fly, they often glide on warm columns of air called thermals.

Thermals form when air comes in contact with land that has become warm by absorbing a lot of heat from the sun. The air is warmed by the land and rises as a thermal.

Storks have to flap their wings to take off. But, once they are in the air, they can spread their large wings and let the thermals carry them higher and higher. Storks may ride thermals beyond a height of 3,500 feet (1,070 meters). While gliding on thermals, storks do not have to flap their wings much, which means they save a lot of energy.

Most species of stork live in tropical areas, where the weather is warm all the time. These storks stay in the same area year round. But white storks and black storks are different—they are long-distance travelers.

The breeding ranges of both the black stork and the white stork include areas in Europe and Asia that have cold winters. As winter approaches in these regions, the storks begin a long journey called a migration (my GRAY shuhn) to places where the weather is warm. Some storks migrate to the southern tip of Africa. Others fly eastward to India or south to southern China.

Storks choose a route that has good thermals. Because thermals usually do not form over water, migrating storks fly mostly over land. When traveling from Europe to Africa, storks cross the Mediterranean Sea at points where the sea is narrow, or the birds travel over the land that surrounds the sea. The two main migration routes followed by storks are near the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Africa and across the Middle East.

When it comes to nests, storks seem to believe that bigger is better. Storks’ nests are large platforms made of sticks and lined with grass, rags, paper, and other materials. Storks build their nests in trees or on cliff ledges. Some types of stork will build a nest on the ground. White storks build nests on rooftops, church steeples, towers, chimneys, and telephone poles. Many people like having storks nearby, so they provide the storks with nice places to build nests, such as platforms on rooftops or special nest towers.

Often a pair of storks will come back to the same nest year after year. Each year, they add more material to it. Both the male and female stork help to build the nest. Some nests are very old and very big—as large as 9 feet (2.7 meters) deep and 6 feet (2 meters) across.

Many storks share a special dance with their mates at the beginning of the breeding season. When white storks migrate south for the winter, they separate from their mates. But, when they return to their breeding ground, they usually go back to their old nest. There, they often meet their mate from the year before.

Most storks begin a dance by bobbing their head. Then the male and female stand bill to bill, taking turns bobbing and nodding their head at each other. Often, storks make loud rattling noises during this display by snapping their bill. No one knows what this dance really means. It may be a way for a pair to get to know each other again after a long separation. It may be a stork’s way of showing how fit it is—a way of indicating, “I’ll be a good parent.” But it also seems to be an important way for the two storks to show they are now a team.

A female stork usually lays three to seven white eggs. An egg laid by a white stork is a little larger than a chicken’s egg. The stork chicks hatch in about four to six weeks. Newly hatched storks are helpless and covered with fluffy feathers. The chicks need a lot of food. The parents find and eat the food. Then they come back to the nest and spit up the food for the chicks to eat.

Most young storks get their first set of feathers when they are 8 or 9 weeks old. Then they are ready to leave the nest. Some may still hang around the nest for some time, begging for food. But, the young of storks that migrate must be able to take care of themselves by the time they leave on the southward journey in the fall.

Storks are ready to mate and have their own babies by the time they are about 4 years old.

The largest ciconiiforms are storks. And, of the storks, the largest species is the African marabou. These birds can reach a height of 5 feet (1.5 meters). In general, for all ciconiiforms, the female of a species is slightly smaller than the male, but the difference is not great.

Of the other members of the ciconiiforms, one large species is the goliath heron. This bird also comes from Africa, and it towers over all other herons. It stands more than 41⁄2 feet (1.4 meters) high.

Goliath herons eat mostly fish. Their size allows them to wade out to deeper water than can many other wading birds, so they can catch bigger fish that swim farther from the shore. When a goliath heron spots a fish, the bird thrusts its head and neck down into the water with lightning speed. The goliath either snatches up the fish by clamping it in its bill, or the heron spears the fish with its pointy bill. It kills the fish before swallowing it by laying the fish on a mat of floating plants and stabbing it.

The smallest storks, such as the hammerkop stork and the African openbill, grow to a height of around 24 inches (60 centimeters).

But, of all the ciconiiforms, the least bittern of North and South America is the smallest. It is 11 to 14 inches (28 to 36 centimeters) tall. The least bittern hunts for fish and small animals among the cover of cattails and reeds.

The least bittern, like all bitterns, is a shy bird. When frightened, bitterns freeze and point their bills straight up into the air. The bittern has a dark brown stripe on its chest that helps it to blend in perfectly with surrounding grasses when it is in this pose.

This bird can stay completely still for some time. If its enemy changes position, the bittern may move very slowly so that its striped chest is always facing the enemy.

Black storks, woolly-necked storks, and jabirus generally live alone, and so do bitterns and a few species of ibis. Only during the breeding season do these birds nest in pairs. But, most storks and herons nest and feed in large groups, called colonies. Sometimes the colony is made up of only one species of bird. Often, however, storks and herons nest in large groups made up of several species. For example, storks, ibises, spoonbills, herons, and egrets may all form one nesting colony. Such colonies can be made up of thousands of birds.

These birds usually build their nests in trees. In some colonies, the smaller birds build their nests lower down in the trees, and the larger birds get the higher branches. After the chicks have hatched, the colony becomes a noisy, smelly place. Some species, especially the egrets, are not very nice neighbors. They often steal the food—and even the nests—of other birds in the colony.

Storks make up the family Ciconiidae. The white stork is Ciconia ciconia; the black stork, C. nigra; the wood stork, Mycteria americana.