Maguari Stork

The Maguari Stork is South America's counterpart to the White Stork, sharing a similar overall shape and largely white plumage with black flight feathers and tail. It differs most obviously in bill and leg color, showing a pale bluish-grey bill rather than red, along with a small patch of bare red-orange skin around the eye.

It is a widespread and locally common stork across the open wetlands and grasslands of South America, often seen foraging in flooded pastures and marshes.

Key field marks

• White body with black flight feathers and black tail
• Pale blue-grey bill (not red)
• Reddish-pink legs
• Small patch of bare red-orange skin around the eye

Similar species

The White Stork, an occasional vagrant to South America, has a red (not blue-grey) bill and red legs. The Wood Stork has a dark, bald, scaly head rather than a white, feathered head. Whooping Crane and other large white waterbirds fly with the neck retracted, whereas the Maguari Stork extends its neck fully in flight like other storks.

Maguari Storks inhabit open wetlands, marshes, flooded grasslands, and river margins across much of South America, from Colombia and Venezuela south to Argentina, with strongholds in areas such as the Pantanal and the Llanos.

The species is largely resident, though southern populations may undertake local seasonal movements linked to flooding and drought cycles. It is generally found singly, in pairs, or in small loose groups rather than large colonies.

Maguari Storks forage by walking through shallow water and grassland, catching fish, amphibians, insects, and small reptiles with quick jabs of the bill, and will also take advantage of prey flushed by grassland fires or flooding.

They are largely silent apart from bill-clattering displays used in courtship and nest defense. Unlike some colonial storks, Maguari Storks often nest singly or in loose, small groups, building a bulky stick nest in a tree, on a cliff, or occasionally on the ground in treeless wetlands. Both parents share incubation of the typical 3-4 egg clutch and the feeding of chicks.