My name is Lefty and I am a Black-necked Stork (also known as a Jabiru).
We are the only Stork species native to Australia, and are found in the wetlands, swamps and riverbanks of Northern and Eastern Australia.
We wade through the water in search of prey, and once spotted, we like to spear it with our long sharp beak! Crusteans, fish, insects and even mammals - yum!
As a female, I have yellow eyes. Males have brown eyes.
We don’t have a voice-box, so we communicate through wing flapping and beak clapping.
As a juvenile bird, I lived in the wild in Darwin, until one day I was attacked by a crocodile. I managed to escape, but with a badly nibbled left wing (hence my name!). A wildlife carer took good care of me and nursed me back to health, but having only 1 working wing, I wasn’t able to be safely released back into the wild. So I made the journey to Caversham Wildlife Park in August 2008. Here I shall safely live out the rest of my 30-40 years.
Aside from crocodile attacks, there are multiple other threats challenging my wild cousins. We are classified by the IUCN Red List as ‘Near Threatened’ with a decreasing population trend (2016) - this isn’t good.
Climate change, drought, changing sea levels, habitat destruction, loss of primary nesting sites, over-fishing, over-grazing, hunting, pollution, littering - that nasty fishing line entanglement and discarded hook injury - its all bad news for us water birds.
