Breeding Ecology of the Painted Stork Mycteria leucocephala in a managed urban wetland

Urbanisation is an important driver of global change. There is relatively little information on how urbanisation is impacting wetland birds in India. We studied the nesting of Painted Storks Mycteria leucocephala at Jakkur Lake in Bengaluru to document the seasonality and breeding success in an urban wetland in southern India. We recorded the total number of nests and chicks in the colony during the entire nesting season from January to May 2017. A total of 66 nests were recorded and they fledged a total of 137 chicks. Of 50 nests that were monitored closely, 10% were abandoned. The mean number of chick per nest was 2.36 (SD = 0.62) and ranged between two and four chicks per nest. We used abundance data from eBird and show that Painted Stork nesting at Jakkur Lake probably started as recently as 2017. We demonstrate that using a combination of primary observation and eBird data can provide valuable insights in to the nesting ecology of large waterbirds in urban areas.