BREEDING STATUS OF THE PAINTED STORK Mycteria leucocephala IN THE KUMANA-VILLU OF THE YALA EAST NATIONAL PARK
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31357/fesympo.v0i0.1272Abstract
Painted stork is a Near Threatened species that uses wetlands as their feedingand breeding grounds. The breeding colony of painted storks at Kumana villuis one of the oldest known colonies in the island. Mangrove vegetationlocated in the middle of the villu provides ideal conditions for nesting notonly for painted storks, but also for Black headed Ibises, Spoonbills, herons,egrets and even for the globally threatened Spot billed Pelicans.
A survey was done in the month of July to assess breeding status of thePained Storks in this villu. The survey was land based where three mangrovevegetation patches (5000m2) were surveyed using a spotting scope (NikonFieldscope). First, all trees in each patches that contain painted stork nestswere identified. Then number of nests on each tree, number of adults,hatchlings and fledglings on nests were recorded.
A total of 222 nests of painted storks were recorded. This comprised of 217active nests of which 74 contained hatchlings while 133 nests containedfledglings. Average number of nests per tree was 3.13 while the number ofnests per tree ranged from 1 to 10. Average hatchling size was 1.81 whileaverage fledgling size was 1.78 where 61.35% nests contained 2 hatchlingsor fledglings while 29.95% nests contained only one hatchling or fledgling.The nest height ranged from 1 to 10m with average nest height being 3.0m.
According to the available literature the breeding season of painted storks isfrom December to May. However, during this survey it was discovered that98% of the nests were active as late as July indicating that there can be greatdeal of variation in the breeding strategies of painted storks. Furthermore,based on our studies we have estimated that there can be approximatelythousand breeding pairs of painted storks in Kumana villu, making this oneof the most important breeding sites for this species. Therefore this siteshould be continuously monitored in order to better understand the breedingbehavior of painted storks.
