Sijan Stork
Description
The Sijan Stork is a very large, tall bird, reaching heights of over 5ft and weights of up to 20 lbs, with a wingspan of up to 12 ft. Females are smaller than males. Sijan Storks fly with the neck retracted like a heron, unlike their other stork relatives.
The Sijan Stork is unmistakable due to its size, bare head and neck, and purple-tinted feathers (black on the back, white on the underparts). It has a huge bill, a pink gular sac at its throat, a neck ruff, and purple-black legs and wings. The sexes are alike, but the young bird is browner and has a smaller bill. Full maturity is not reached for up to four years.
Habitat & Range
Sijan Storks take their name from the area of their range where they are best known, around Sijan in the Scavenger Lands. Here, storks can be found in the swamps to the West and along the length of the Avarice river, even venturing into the nearby shadowlands with only minimal trepidation.
A seperate population of Sijan Storks is found a great distance to the south, where they can be found in southern Harborhead and across the Varang City-States.
Behavior
Like most storks, the marabou is gregarious and a colonial breeder, build ing a tree nest in which two or three eggs are laid. It is not very vocal, but indulges in bill-rattling courtship displays. The throat sac is also used to make various noises at that time.
Diet
The Sijan Stork is a scavenger, and the naked head and neck are adaptations to this livelihood, as it is with the Vultures with which the stork often feeds. In both cases, a feathered head would become rapidly clotted with blood and other substances when the bird's head was inside a large corpse, and the bare head is easier to keep clean.
This large and powerful bird eats mainly carrion, scraps and feces but will opportunistically eat almost any animal matter it can swallow. It occasionally eats other birds including doves and the chicks from any nest it can reach. During the breeding season, adults scale back on carrion and take mostly small, live prey since nestlings need this kind of food to survive. Common prey at this time may consist of fish, frogs, insects, eggs, small mammals and reptiles. Though known to eat putrid and seemingly inedible foods, these storks may sometimes wash food in water to remove soil. When feeding on carrion, Sijan Storks frequently follow Vultures, which are better equipped with hooked bills for tearing through carrion meat and may wait for the vultures to cast aside a piece, steal a piece of meat directly from the vulture or wait until the vultures are done.
Cultural Significance
Sijan Stork feathers are used in a variety of applications: larger feathers are employed in the creation of fans, while down is frequently used in the trimming of various items of clothing and hats. In either case, the feathers take well to dyes.
Due to their range and purple tint, Sijan Storks are sometimes referred to as Mortician Storks. They cause a great deal of trouble for the tomb city of Sijan, as they frequently move from neighbouring swamps to seek food amongst the tombs of the empty surface of Sijan. Military patrols are often employed to suppress stork incursions disrupting the sanctity of the burial sites, and these culls are the source of the bulk of Creation's Sijan Stork feathers, which are transported to other River Province cities such as Nexus for processing. While dyed feathers are dominant elsewhere, some within Sijan itself prefer undyed purple-white feathers as personal fans or grave goods.
