Ciconia episcopus
Silhouette: L. Shyamal · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~20% in a week ~30%
The Asian woolly-necked stork or Asian woollyneck (Ciconia episcopus) is a species of large wading bird in the stork family Ciconiidae. It breeds singly, or in small loose colonies. It is distributed in a wide variety of habitats including marshes in forests, agricultural areas, and freshwater wetlands across Asia.
The woolly-necked stork was described by the French polymath Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon in 1780 in his Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux from a specimen collected from the Coromandel Coast of India. The bird was also illustrated in a hand-coloured plate engraved by François-Nicolas Martinet in the Planches Enluminées D'Histoire Naturelle which was produced under the supervision of Edme-Louis Daubenton to accompany Buffon's text. Neither the plate caption nor Buffon's description included a scientific name but in 1783 the Dutch naturalist Pieter Boddaert coined the binomial name Ardea episcopus in his catalogue of the Planches Enluminées. The woolly-necked stork is now placed in the genus Ciconia that was erected by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. The genus name Ciconia is the Latin word for a "stork"; the specific epithet episcopus... Wikipedia →
Aberrant0:22
India · 2025
© Sreekumar Chirukandoth · XC1068686 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kaziranga National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Wilpattu National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 3 | Royal Bardia National Park | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 4 | Ranthambore National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Keoladeo National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Minneriya National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 7 | Satpura National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Udawalawe National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 9 | Chitwan National Park | 🇳🇵 Nepal | |
| 10 | Yala National Park | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 11 | Mudumalai National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 12 | Bandhavgarh National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 13 | Nagarhole National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 14 | Periyar National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 15 | Gir National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 16 | Bandipur National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 17 | Cat Tien National Park | 🇻🇳 Vietnam | |
| 18 | Jim Corbett National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 19 | Bali Barat National Park | 🇮🇩 Indonesia | |
| 20 | Sinharaja Forest Reserve | 🇱🇰 Sri Lanka | |
| 21 | Kanha National Park | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 22 | Manas National Park | 🇮🇳 India |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ponnani | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 2 | Agra | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 3 | Thrissur | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 4 | Bhopal | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 5 | Kota | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 7 | Kalyan-Dombivli | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 8 | Vasai-Virar | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 9 | Solapur | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 10 | Kozhikode | 🇮🇳 India |
| # | Zoo / Centre | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Planckendael Zoo | 🇧🇪 Belgium | |
| 2 | Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens | 🇻🇳 Vietnam | |
| 3 | Bandung Zoo | 🇮🇩 Indonesia | |
| 4 | Tier- und Freizeitpark Thüle | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 5 | Thrissur Zoo | 🇮🇳 India | |
| 6 | Rákosův pavilon | 🇨🇿 Czechia | |
| 7 | Mořský svět | 🇨🇿 Czechia | |
| 8 | Wolfgang-Köhler-Primaten-Forschungszentrum | 🇩🇪 Germany |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report an Asian Woolly-necked Stork sighting in Vasai-Virar on a given day, based on 91 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 109th most-seen of the 217 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 20%, and over a week to about 30%, if each day is a fresh chance.
February
In that month about 20% of wildlife watchers report an Asian Woolly-necked Stork in Vasai-Virar on a given day, against under 5% in March to November, the lowest months. That is one of Vasai-Virar's driest months, with almost no rain against 840 mm in July.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Asian Woolly-necked Stork sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
8th of 28
Of the 28 cities where we can rate Asian Woolly-necked Stork sightings, Vasai-Virar ranks 8th at about 10%. The best odds are in Ponnani (India, about 30%), Agra (India, about 20%) and Thrissur (India, about 20%).
Same family: Ciconiidae
The closest relatives of the Asian Woolly-necked Stork that you can see in Vasai-Virar (family Ciconiidae, Storks) are Painted Stork (about 40%) and Asian Openbill Stork (about 30%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Asian Woolly-necked Stork is recorded against all the birds logged in Vasai-Virar (91 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
