The Mr Fawlty of the Bird World

My next feathered friend is Basil - a woolly necked stork. With their posh black and white plumage, storks of this variety have been likened to lawyers and he and Sybil could, very well, have been called Sue'em and Screw'em. However, I felt that their long legs and rather ungainly mannerisms were more Basil-ly, than lawyer-y, hence their names. 

(not my pic - from Wikipedia okay - mine were terrible)

I first met Basil and Sybil as they perched together on a telephone wire awaiting their next customers i.e. humans to feed them, and I guess I was it. Since then, I have only ever seen one at a time and, despite some long, hard looks in the general direction - and much referring to bird books - I can't work out who is who. I have decided that my daily visitor is probably Basil and, perhaps rather sexistly, have placed Sybil on a nest somewhere hatching the next generation. While I can't be sure ornithologically, all I do know is that one of them comes onto my verandah every day for a snack and a drink. 

Some things you may not know about storks:

1. They should be called Woolly-necked and Fluffy chested storks.
2. They love cheese and Basil has become quite adept at catching pieces in his long (and savage) beak.
3. Their necks are not made of wool.
4. Their collective terms is a 'muster'.
5. They eat meat.
6. They have outsourced baby delivering.
7. They are inquisitive little bleeders poking their long (and savage) beaks into what ain't theirs - mostly frogs' hearts.
8. They didn't place in the Graceful Birds World Champs.
9. Baby storks are not called storklings or storklets.
10. You can't keep a good stork down.

1. First sighting

Cheese...!

Action shots - bucket poking and drinking.