Archie Carr:
A Naturalist in Florida
Wood Storks Wood Storks
NARRATION: In the early 1970's Archie was hard at work on a book about the florida Everglades for Time-Life's series on the American wilderness. His research focused on three major areas: Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve, and the Audubon Society's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.  This preserve seems a good place to begin this part of the story, for it is home to an endangered bird--the wood stork--that to Archie epitomized primeval Florida
ARCHIE: You can walk out into the heart of Corkscrew on a 5,800 foot boardwalk, carefully laid out to take the observer through the different biological communities in the tract. It finally ends in a broad central marsh around which most of the numerous nesting groups that make up Corkscrew's wood stork colony usually locate.  
At nesting time wood storks require a prodigious amount of food. A family of storks, including two young ones, needs about 440 pounds of fish to sustain itself during the four months of the breeding season. Obviously storks have to work hard to meet these demands. If their nesting period is to be successful, wood storks are compelled to make daily trips in search of some densely populated, drought shrunken pool.  

 

 
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