Standing from a distance, heronries of painted storks look like cluttered dirty blobs of white on the tree tops. One really has to strain his eyes to make out what exactly the entire scene represents. A closer look brings in view spectacular ‘haunched up’ colony of large birds. Built on trees standing in or near water, one might find as many as 10-20 nests on a single tree, almost touching each other. Nests of cormorants, pelicans, egrets, open bill storks, white ibises can also be found on the same tree. Titled ‘dokh’ in Hindi, a stork is a massive bird with a yellow, long and heavy bill, slightly de-curved near the tip. The plumage is white and closely barred, marked with glistening black above and with a black band across the breast.
