This is bird known.

With their bare heads, long legs and massive bills,

Woodstork seemed to have flown out of a fairy tale, but in the

American South they're a real life part of the ecosystem. Here in the Everglades

Woodstork's nest alongside several other species on a tiny island in the center of a pond.

The sounds of storks beating their big wings and clacking their bills together fills the air.

Wood storks live throughout Latin America and the Caribbean,

but in the US they're limited to parts of the southeast with wetlands big enough to support breeding colonies.

Developers drained large areas of wetlands, causing the Everglades population to decline to just 5,000 breeding

pairs in the 1970s, placing them on the endangered species list.

Habitat protection and restoration efforts have helped wood storks begin recovering,

although they still struggle to find suitable breeding habitat in South Florida.

Meanwhile, some storks have expanded northward into the Carolinas.

Continued protection of the storks wetland habitats is essential to making sure they can recover.

For Bird Note, I'm Michael Stein.

This episode is sponsored by Joan Walsh and Dave Sibley to celebrate Dr. Margaret Rubaga and the

glorious Woodstorks. I'm not.