Asian Openbill
Anastomus oscitans
Also known as: Asian Open-Bill Stork, Asian Openbill Stork
About This Species
A large wading bird of wetlands, flooded rice paddies and marshes across South and Southeast Asia, easily told by the gap between its mandibles that gives the species its name. Watch for it wading slowly through shallow water or standing at pond edges, using that specialised bill to extract snails from their shells. It is most conspicuous outside the breeding season when birds gather in loose flocks at wetlands, and during the monsoon when nesting colonies form in waterside trees.
Ethical Viewing Guidelines
- Keep a reasonable distance, especially near breeding colonies, since wading birds readily abandon nests if disturbed repeatedly.
- Wetland birds and their nesting sites receive some legal protection in parts of its range, though enforcement and specific rules differ by country, so treat any colony as sensitive rather than assuming a fixed safe distance.
- Binoculars or a scope from a bund or path let you watch feeding behaviour without pushing birds off a feeding patch.
LCAvesCiconiiformesCiconiidae
Seasonal Activity
341,162 sightings · 2000–2026
Citizen science records via GBIF
All monthsThis month
Classification
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Aves
- Order
- Ciconiiformes
- Family
- Ciconiidae
Photo
(c) Liu JimFood, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Liu JimFood
CC-BY-NC-4.0
Occurrence data from GBIF.