greater adjutant

The Greater Adjutant in non-breeding plumage has bluish-grey upperparts contrasting with pale grey greater coverts and tertials. The tail is dark grey. On the underparts, body and wing-coverts are whitish. The undertail feathers are blackish. The naked head is pinkish like neck and pronounced drooping neck-pouch. We can see a white ruff around the base of the neck, and some dark hair-like feathering on head and neck. The large, deep-based bill is dark at base, with pale horn mandible. The culmen is convex. The eyes are bluish-white. Legs and feet are dark grey. However, the legs often appear whitish, due to urohydrosis, in order to cool them with their dejections. Male and female are similar. The Greater Adjutant in breeding plumage has blackish face and forehead, whereas head and neck are redder. We can see an inflated hanging gular pouch and a reddish bulge at base of the rear neck. The upperparts are paler bluish-grey with silvery greater coverts and tertials. The neck pouch becomes bright saffron-yellow whereas the upper tibia is reddish. The juvenile has narrower bill than adults and the eyes are brownish-blue to bluish-brown. Head and neck show denser hair-like feathering. The upperparts are duller. The wings are all-dark first, before to acquire a brown band across greater coverts and tertials.

The Greater Adjutant frequents freshwater marshes and pools, freshwater swamp forest and sometimes ricefields and open areas. The species occurs in lowlands, but it may occasionally reach 1500 metres of elevation in Nepal, in Himalayan foothills.
At other times, the birds can be seen foraging at urban disposal sites. They often gather around carcasses and at rubbish dumps in open fields but also near towns. It can be seen perched on houses and wandering about by markets for food.

The greater adjutant is omnivorous and although mainly a scavenger, it preys on frogs and large insects and will also take birds, reptiles and rodents. It has been known to attack wild ducks within reach and swallowing them whole.[41] Greater adjutants also capture many fish, with 36 fish prey species documented in Assam, and many fish taken were large, weighing about 2 to 3 kg (4.4 to 6.6 lb).[42] Their main diet however is carrion, and like the vultures their bare head and neck is an adaptation. They are often found on garbage dumps and will feed on animal and human excreta.[43] In 19th-century Calcutta, they fed on partly burnt human corpses disposed along the Ganges river.[44] In Rajasthan, where it is extremely rare, it has been reported to feed on swarms of desert locusts (Schistocerca gregaria)[45] but this has been questioned.[32]

The Greater Adjutant is often silent away from the nest. Like other Ciconiidae, it performs bill-clattering during the displays, but also produces low grunting, croaking and roaring sounds.

The greater adjutant (Leptoptilos dubius) is a member of the stork family Ciconiidae. Its genus includes the lesser adjutant of Asia and the marabou stork of Africa. Once found widely across southern Asia mainly in India but extending east to Borneo the greater adjutant is now restricted to a much smaller range with only three breeding populations two in India with the largest colony in Assam a smaller one around Bhagalpur and another breeding population in Cambodia. They disperse widely after the breeding season. This large stork has a massive wedge-shaped bill a bare head and a distinctive neck pouch. During the day it soars in thermals along with vultures with whom it shares the habit of scavenging. They feed mainly on carrion and offal however they are opportunistic and will sometimes prey on vertebrates. The English name is derived from their stiff "military" gait when walking on the ground. Large numbers once lived in Asia but they have declined (possibly due to improved sanitation) to the point of endangerment. The total population in 2008 was estimated at around a thousand individuals. In the 19th century they were especially common in the city of Calcutta where they were referred to as the "Calcutta adjutant" and included in the coat of arms for the city. Known locally as hargila (derived from the Assamese words "har" means bone and "gila" means swallower thus "bone-swallower") and considered to be unclean birds they were largely left undisturbed but sometimes hunted for the use of their meat in folk medicine. Valued as scavengers they were once depicted in the logo of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. The greater adjutant is a huge bird standing tall at 145&ndash150 cm (4 ft 9 in&ndash4 ft 11 in). The average length is 136 cm (4 ft 6 in) and average wingspan is 250 cm (8 ft 2 in) it may rival its cousin the marabou stork (Leptoptilos crumeniferus) as the largest winged extant stork. While no weights have been published for wild birds the greater adjutant is among the largest of living storks with published measurements overlapping with those of the jabiru (Jabiru mycteria) saddle-billed stork (Ephippiorhynchus senegalensis) and marabou stork (Leptoptilos crumeniferus). Juvenile greater adjutant storks in captivity weighed from 8 to 11 kg (18 to 24 lb). A greater adjutant after recuperating in captivity from after injury during nest collapse was found to weigh 4.71 kg (10.4 lb) as a nestling and to weigh 8 kg (18 lb) after reaching maturity and ready for re-release. For comparison the heaviest known wild stork was a marabou stork scaling 8.9 kg (20 lb) with adult marabou ranging from 4&ndash6.8 kg (8.8&ndash15.0 lb) (females) and 5.6&ndash8.9 kg (12&ndash20 lb) (males). The huge bill which averages 32.2 cm (12.7 in) long is wedge-like and is pale grey with a darker base. The wing chord averages 80.5 cm (31.7 in) the tail 31.8 cm (12.5 in) and the tarsus 32.4 cm (12.8 in) in length. With the exception of the tarsus length the standard measurements of the greater adjutant are on average greater than that of other stork species. A white collar ruff at the base of its bare yellow to red-skinned neck gives it a vulture-like appearance. In the breeding season the pouch and neck become bright orange and the upper thighs of the grey legs turn reddish. Adults have a dark wing that contrasts with light grey secondary coverts. The underside of the body is whitish and the sexes are indistinguishable in the field. Juveniles are a duller version of the adult. The pendant inflatable pouch connects to the air passages and is not connected to the digestive tract. The exact function is unknown but it is not involved in food storage as was sometimes believed. This was established in 1825 by Dr. John Adam a student of Professor Robert Jameson who dissected a specimen and found the two-layered pouch filled mainly with air. The only possible confusable species in the region is the smaller lesser adjutant (Leptoptilos javanicus) which lacks a pouch prefers wetland habitats has a lighter grey skull cap a straighter edge to the upper mandible and lacks the contrast between the grey secondary coverts and the dark wings.