Wood Storks, Aiken County, SC (1 Viewer)

At about 7:20 am today I saw 8 wood storks over B-Area at the Savannah River Site in Aiken County, SC. They approached from the north and turned to the west toward the Savannah River (and the nearby Kathwood Lakes at the Silver Bluff Audubon Sanctuary). I believe this is quite early in the year for Wood Storks here, where they are post-breeding wanderers.

Cornell,

Is it typical for them to visit the refuge? I did not know that they typically made it that far north.

Good eyes though!

Storks at Kathwood

jgrnot said:

Cornell,

Is it typical for them to visit the refuge? I did not know that they typically made it that far north.

Good eyes though!

Click to expand...

They do visit the refuge, typically in July and August. In fact, the Kathwood Lakes at the Silver Bluff Sanctuary were modified in the mid-80s so they could be drawn down in the late summer to attract storks to feed on the fish that were stocked in the ponds. This was mitigation under the ESA for a nuclear reactor project at the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site. Restart of the reactor, with a once-through cooling system, sent enough water down an on-site stream and into the Savannah River to cover areas that normally became shallow enough in the summer for storks to feed (there was a breeding colony not too far away in Georgia at the time - I don't know if it is still there). The reactor was shut down in 1988, but DOE continued to fund Kathwood through about 2000. Now, the Audubon Society funds all activities there.

Thanks for the update. I actually went to USC a while back and I have always been interested in the refuge ever since I have heard about it. I definitely would love to see the storks.