The lesser adjutant (Leptoptilos javanicus) is a large wading bird in the stork family Ciconiidae. Like other members of its genus, it has a bare neck and head. It is however more closely associated with wetland habitats where it is solitary and is less likely to scavenge than the related greater adjutant. It is a widespread species found from India through Southeast Asia to Java.

Distribution and habitat
The Lesser Adjutant is often found in large rivers and lakes inside well wooded regions, in freshwater wetlands in agricultural areas, and coastal wetlands including mudflats and mangroves. It is found in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh (a colony with about 6 nests and 20 individuals was discovered near Thakurgaon in 2011), Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Laos, Singapore, Indonesia and Cambodia.

The largest population is in Cambodia. In India they are mainly distributed in the eastern states of Assam, West Bengal and Bihar. It may occur as a vagrant on the southern edge of Bhutan. They are extremely rare in southern India.

In Sri Lanka, they are found in lowland areas largely within protected areas, though they also use forested wetlands and crop fields. In Nepal, surveys in eastern districts had suggested that they preferentially use forested patches with small wetlands, largely avoiding crop fields. More recent studies indicate that breeding densities of Lesser Adjutant in central Nepal can be high even on croplands.

Range map from www.oiseaux.net - Ornithological Portal Oiseaux.net

www.oiseaux.net is one of those MUST visit pages if you're in to bird watching. You can find just about everything there

Description
A large stork with an upright stance, a bare head and neck without a pendant pouch, it has a length of 87–93 cm (outstretched from bill-to-tail measurement), weighs from 4 to 5.71 kg and stands about 110–120 cm tall.

The only confusable species is the greater adjutant, but this species is generally smaller and has a straight upper bill edge (culmen), measuring 25.8–30.8 cm in length, with a paler base and appears slightly trimmer and less hunch-backed.

The skullcap is paler and the upper plumage is uniformly dark, appearing almost all black. The nearly naked head and neck have a few scattered hair-like feathers. The upper shank or tibia is grey rather than pink, the tarsus measures 22.5–26.8 cm. The belly and undertail are white. Juveniles are a duller version of the adult but have more feathers on the nape.

During the breeding season, the face is reddish and the neck is orange. The larger median wing coverts are tipped with copper spots and the inner secondary coverts and tertials have narrow white edging. The wing chord measures 57.5–66 cm in length.

Like others in the genus, they retract their necks in flight. In flight, the folded neck can appear like the pouch of the greater adjutant. Males and females appear similar in plumage but males tend to be larger and heavier billed.

Listen to the Lesser Adjutant

Sound from www.xeno-canto.org

Remarks from the Recordist

Sounds from a small breeding colony with several adults and larger chicks.

Behaviour and ecology
The lesser adjutant stalks around wetlands feeding mainly on fish, frogs, reptiles, large invertebrates, rodents, small mammals and rarely carrion. Location of prey appears to be entirely visual, with one observation of storks sitting on telegraphic poles apparently scanning a marsh for prey.

They are largely silent but have been noted to clatter their bill, hiss and moan at the nest. During one of the threat displays called the "Arching display" that is given in the presence of intruders, adults extend their neck and sometimes give a hoarse wail.

Courtship behaviour of the lesser adjutant is identical to other species of the genus Leptoptilos. During pair formation, female birds lift their heads in a scooping motion with bill-clattering (called the "Balancing Posture").

They are solitary except during the breeding season when they form loose colonies, never exceeding 20 nests in a single colony.

The breeding season is February to May in southern India and November to January in north-eastern India, beginning as early as July. The nest is a large platform of sticks placed on a tall tree. In Nepal, nest initiations started in mid-september continuing until mid-November, with all chicks fledging by late-January.

The nest diameter is more than a metre and up to a metre deep. The clutch consists of two to four white eggs that are rapidly soiled during incubation. Incubation period is 28–30 days. In eastern Nepal, four colonies consisting of 61 nests were all built on the tree species Adina cordifolia and Bombax ceiba.

Other tree species on which nests have been found in India and Myanmar include Alstonia scholaris and Salmalia malabarica with some nests located as high as 46 m. Nests have not yet been located in Sri Lanka, though young birds have been observed feeding in crop fields and in freshwater wetlands.

The average size of 35 colonies with a total of 101 nests in central, lowland Nepal was 2.9 nests, ranging in size from one nest to 13 nests.

Adult storks took an average of 30 minutes to return to nests with food for nestlings and fledglings, though there was considerable variation in this measure. Time taken to return to nests by adults was impacted by colony size, age of chicks, amount of wetlands around colonies, and the progression of the season. Adults returned faster when brood sizes were higher, but took longer to return as chicks aged.

The breeding season in Nepal extended from the middle of the monsoon, when the primary crop on the landscape was flooded rice, to winter, when the cropping was much more mixed and the landscape was much drier. This variation was clearly represented in the changing amount of time it took adults to return to nest after finding food.

They returned much faster during the monsoon, but took longer when the crops changed and the landscape dried out suggesting that changing cropping patterns can have serious implications on their ability to raise chicks.

A lesser adjutant paired and hybridized with a Painted Stork at Dehiwala Zoo, Sri Lanka and at Kuala Lumpur Zoo. The hybrid young had plumage and bill-size of the adjutant, but stance and bill shape of the Painted Stork.

Conservation status

Vulnerable

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2.
International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sighted: (Date of first photo that I could use) 25 January 2016
Location: Tala Zone, Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, India

PLEASE! As I'm a first time birdwatcher bear in mind that some of the bird can be wrongly named. I have bought books and I confirm on the internet to get the right identity on the birds I take pictures off. But there can still be mistakes.

I have had most help from my friend, the bird pal I met at Suan Rot Fai. Sending pictures of birds I have not been able to identify to him via Line. 3 minutes later he and he have managed to identify most of the birds I have had problems with. THANKS! Visit his web page m☥lever for his beautiful pictures.

And my new aid, maybe, and I say maybe the best aid. I brought my mobile phone as my SIM card have stopped working and I tried to get it to work again so I can use the internet. Thus I had my phone in my pocket on my first game drive in Jim Corbett National Park.

We saw a bird and I asked my Guide and the driver if they had a pen and a paper as I had forgot my pen and paper in my room. I remembered my LG phone and I recorded the name. And thus I will always bring my phone. Writing the name in the car and I have found more than once that it can be hard to read what I had wrote when I'm back in my room.

So now I always have my mobile in my pocket and it has been a great help. And from November 2018 I use eBird. Bird watching in U.A.E and Oman and my guide in Dubai recommended eBird and I have used the app since then and I note every bird I can identify in my eBird app.































PLEASE! If I have made any mistakes identifying any bird, PLEASE let me know on my guestbook

Visitors from different countries since 26th of September 2011