231

season. They often fed in perimeter ditches surrounding

truck farming fields or pastures adjacent to natural

wetlands. Later in the dry season, when ponds in the

centers of sloughs were drying, the percentage of Wood-

Storks-- found in man-made and man-influenced areas was much

lower. Table 26 gives the percentage of the .Wood Storks

sighted on each date that were feeding in man-made wet

areas. In areas of more intensive agriculture such as

northeast Hendry County where there is less of an interface

between natural areas and those of man, no feeding wading

birds were seen. Wood Storks were not observed using

perimeter ditches around citrus fields, which are deeper

.than those around/truck crop fields. The deeper canals of

the study region were not used by Wood Storks at the

beginning of the season, but toward the end of the dry

season they were among the few places where Wood Storks

could feed. Especially on the coastal ridge, many canals

dried to puddles, concentrating fish late in the dry season

of 1973-74.



Soaring

 Flying Wood Storks were observed at altitudes of 300 m

 to 600 m from December 1973 through March 1974. In late

 April and throughout May when the birds were flying to Lake

 Okeechobee to feed they soared as high as 1500 m above the

 rookery.