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At present I am retired and spending my time mostly on fishing and photography. I bought my first SLR way back in 1982. It was a Minolta XG1. My last film camera was the Maxxum 9000. When the fantastic Sony Alpha 100 was launched, I changed over to the digital system. My Alpha 580 was acquired followed closely by my Alpha 77.

My main interest in photography is lifestyles, sports, sceneries, nature, birds and macro shots. Lately, I have spend more time on bird and nature shooting. As a regular contributer to some fishing magazines, I shoot quite a lot of photographs of anglers too....hence my photography blog is named 'SHOOT THE HOOKER'.



Having grown up near the confluence of two, the Kangsar and the Perak Rivers, it is not surprising that one of my main interest is fishing. My younger days were spent swimming and fishing.... with a bamboo pole, line and small hooks.Now while fishing, my friends and I do take a lot of photographs of anglers in action. The anglers must be careful so as not to accidentally hook on to a photographer. So I think as a reminder, I would like to name my fishing blog as 'HOOK THE SHOOTER'.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Asian Openbill Stork (Anastomus oscitans)

An Openbill with outstretched wings while landing. 
    

The Asian Openbill Stork are distributed throughout the Indian Subcontinent, Thailand right up to Cambodia. During certain times of the year they can be seen among the wetland and padi fields of Malaysia.

An Openbill foraging for food.
     The storks are normally found congregating at wetlands and padi-fields foraging for food. They feed mainly on molluscs, especially of the pila family. Most of the time the birds used their bill to search for the molluscs in the water and can manage to open the shells to extract the meat. All adults have a gaps in their bills which is well adapted to hold the slippery shells of molluscs. Susprisingly this feature is absent from the juveniles. Water snakes, frogs and large insects round up as part of their food chain too. At times the stork can be seen gliding in flocks, circling in the air, using the thermal to help them move around and save energy.

A freshwater crab fell victim.
     Breeding season is around July to September. Nests with 2-4 eggs are often built on half submerged trees.



The openbills like to sun
themsleves like this.





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