Yours for Good Fermentables ™: Pic(k) of the Week: Wood stork, perched

Saturday, October 01, 2022

Pic(k) of the Week: Wood stork, perched

In Fort Mosé Historic State Park, in St. Augustine, Florida, USA, a wood stork (Mycteria americana) perches in a tree on a brackish marshland hammock. 5 September 2022.

To the north [of Fort Mosé], there is a rookery, a nesting colony of gregarious birds, such as wood storks, egrets, and herons. These birds showcase their breeding plumage from mid-March through July. One of the largest birds to nest in this area is the wood stork [a large American wading bird]. This area is ideal for nesting because the changing water level reveals higher concentrations of fish during lower tides. Females lay two to five eggs, which both parents incubate for about one month. A pair of nesting wood storks and their young need approximately 443 pounds of fish during the breeding season to survive.

In the 1930s, there were an estimated 20,000 breeding pairs of wood storks [in Florida]; today, the population is approximately 8,000. The numbers have declined drastically, mainly from loss of feeding grounds due to land development, logging, and draining.
— Fort Mosé placard

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Fort Mose

Fort Mose Historic State Park is a former Spanish fort in St. Augustine, Florida. In 1738, the governor of Spanish Florida, Manuel de Montiano, had the fort established as a free black settlement, the first to be legally sanctioned in what would become the territory of the United States.

The park is located on the edge of a salt marsh on the western side of the waterway separating the mainland from the coastal barrier islands. The original site of the 18th-century fort was uncovered in a 1986 archeological dig. The 24-acre (9.7 ha) site is now protected as a Florida State Park.It was designated a US National Historic Landmark on October 12, 1994.
— Wikipedia.

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Pic(k) of the Week: one in a weekly series of images posted on Saturdays, and occasionally, but not always (as is the case today), with a good fermentable as the subject.

Photo 40 of 52, for year 2022. See it at Flickr: here.

Commercial reproduction requires explicit permission, as per Creative Commons.

Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10 II.