Lesser Adjutant

The male and female bald storks are similar, but the male is obviously taller and bulkier. The bill is long and thick, wedge-shaped, thick at the base and gradually tapering towards the tip. The forehead and top of the head are bare and featherless, and the back of the head and neck are also bare, with only sparse hair-like feathers on them. The upper body, wings and tail are dark gray with a blue-green metallic luster. There are small, oval copper spots near the tip of the middle secondary coverts. The shoulder feathers and large inner secondary coverts have narrow white feather edges, and the rest of the large inner secondary coverts are black. The lower body is white, and the lower tail coverts are longer and also white. The iris is white, light grayish white or blue-gray. The bill is yellow or dark yellow, with a light white tip and pink or red at the base. The bare skin on the forehead and top of the head is light green-brown or light yellow. The bare skin on the back of the head

Origin: Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.
Possibly extinct: China.
Regionally extinct: Singapore.
Migrant bird: Bhutan.
In China, it is mainly found in Jiangxi (July), Sichuan Chongqing (October), Yunnan and Hainan Island.
It mainly inhabits tropical and subtropical mountain plains and low mountain swampy forest areas, often active in lakes, ponds, flooded plains, swamps, dry riverbeds, forest ponds and streams, and rice fields, and sometimes appears in coastal mangroves, grasslands and muddy flats after low tide.

Lesser Adjutant, also known as Lesser Adjutant in English, is a large and bulky wading bird with no subspecies.

The bald stork mainly feeds on fish, frogs, reptiles, mollusks, crabs, crustaceans, locusts, grasshoppers, lizards, rodents, chicks and insects, and occasionally eats animal carcasses. It often moves and forages alone or in small groups. It is quite active and careless when hunting for food. It often walks slowly on the ground or in shallow water. It mainly finds food through visual observation and detection, and immediately pecks it with the tip of its beak.

When flying, the bald stork does not stretch its neck forward like other storks, but retracts its head to its shoulders and flies mainly by slowly flapping its wings. An average of 153 times per minute. The bald stork can also use thermal air currents to soar in the air like an eagle. When standing, it often retracts its neck, retracts its head to its shoulders, and tilts its beak downward.

Bald storks usually nest in tall trees in swampy forests or in mangroves in seaside mangroves. The time of nesting varies from place to place. The nest is mainly made of dead branches, with some twigs and green leaves inside, and the structure is very rough. The nest is disc-shaped, with a diameter of 60-150 cm. 1.0-120 cm tall. Usually breed in small groups, sometimes with up to 12-20 nests in a large tree, and there are also reports of nests on rocky cliffs. Each nest lays 2-4 eggs, which are white and have an average size of 76.4 mm × 55.3 mm. The incubation period is 28-30 days, and the chicks are late-maturing. After hatching, the whole body is covered with white down feathers, with the head and face exposed. The chicks are raised by both male and female parents.

The bald stork was once distributed in Jiangxi, Yunnan, Sichuan and Hainan Island in China. Since Southwest Normal University collected a male specimen in the hillside paddy field at the foot of Jinyun Mountain in Xiema Township, Beibei, Chongqing on October 1, 1954, there has been no report of the bald stork appearing in China for more than 40 years. Perhaps it has become extinct in China.

The Adjutant Stork was once widely distributed in South Asia and Southeast Asia, including India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. It is a species endemic to tropical Asia and neighboring islands. However, due to deforestation, swamp drainage and farmland conversion, loss or deterioration of nesting and foraging habitats, coupled with human interference and illegal hunting, the population is decreasing. According to a survey in Assam, India from 1987 to 1989, there are about 400, about 100 pairs in Yala National Park, Sri Lanka, a small group in Vietnam, about 200 in Malaysia, and no more than 2,000 in Indonesia. According to the Asian Midwinter Waterbird Survey organized by the International Waterfowl Research Bureau, in 1990, there were 43 in Bangladesh, 779 in India, 14 in Nepal, 3 in Sri Lanka, 56 in Indonesia, 47 in Malaysia, and 19 in Vietnam; in 1992, there were 2 in Bangladesh, 124 in India, 41 in Nepal, 5 in Indonesia, and 51 in Malaysia, and the number continued to decrease.

According to ancient Chinese records, there was also a species of adjutant stork (Leptoptilos dubius) in China in the past, which was very similar to the adjutant stork, but larger in size. The difference between it and the adjutant stork is that it is larger in size, and it also has a naked pink throat pouch hanging from the front neck, a circle of white feathers at the base of the neck, and a wide gray horizontal band on the wings. Today, it is only distributed in South Asia and Southeast Asia.

The Chinese ancient book "Ancient and Modern Notes" describes the vulture as "big, with a head eight feet high" and the vulture described in "Compendium of Materia Medica" as "with wings five or six feet wide, and a head six or seven feet high, and a beard bag under its throat like a pelican" refers to the great vulture. Obviously, the distribution range of the great vulture in the past was far more than the current South Asian and Southeast Asian countries, but also distributed to the Chinese mainland. The reason for its disappearance in China is also recorded in ancient Chinese books, that is, large-scale hunting. Because the great vulture likes to eat animal carcasses, has no hair on its head and neck, and a pink throat sac hangs in front of its neck, its shape and color are ugly, it was considered an unlucky bird in ancient times and was killed. In the Tang Dynasty, the government even used hunting great vultures as a tax levied on the people. Under the nationwide shooting, it naturally could not escape the fate of extinction.

Listed in the "National List of Terrestrial Wildlife with Important Economic and Scientific Research Value" (Item 36) issued by the State Forestry Administration of China on August 1, 2000.

Listed in the "Red List of Endangered Species of the World Conservation Union" (IUCN) 2016 ver 3.1-Vulnerable (VU).

Listed in the second level of China's "National Key Protected Wildlife List" (February 5, 2021).

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