233


Other Wading Birds

 Table 27 gives the number of Wood Storks and the

 number of other wading birds seen on the survey flights.

 Since the number of Wood Storks that were nesting at

 Corkscrew (4,000) is known (Table 2), the ratio of Wood

 Storks to other wading birds seen in the area can provide

 an estimate of the total number of other wading birds. The

 higher proportion of Wood Storks seen in March could be

 explained by spring migration of some populations of the

 other species and by the concentration of feeding wading

 birds in the Lake Okeechobee marshes, which Mlarch flights

 did not cover. Large numbers of White Ibis, Wood Storks,

 and other wading birds were found in the marshes of Lake

 Okeechobee in April and May and may have been there in

 March. An average of the ratios of Wood Storks to other

 wading birds from January and February flights (0.06) was

 used to estimate that 65,000 wading birds other than Wood

 Storks were feeding in southwest Florida during the 1973-74

 dry season.



 Wood Stork Production per Hectare Wetlands

 Using nesting records from Table 2 and Kahl's (1963)

estimate of the average weight of Wood Storks (2.5 kg wet

wt), the number of adult storks supported and fledglings

produced per hectare of southwest Florida's wetlands were

calculated for the breeding seasons of 1960-61, 1973-74,

and 1974-75. In 1960-61, when an estimated 0.49 million