My memory of Sam, the marabou stork, my "out of town visitor"

January 11, 2026

It all started a few years ago when my husband sent me a fuzzy picture of a strange bird he had spotted on the property when he was making rounds one day. I had no idea what I was looking at the time, but thought I would enlist the assistance of a local birding community on Facebook. That was unpleasant to say the least. The amateur sleuths dissected my profile, pegged me as an attention seeking liar (my perception), and as an impossible sighting.

So as days went on, I witnessed the impressive stature of Sam, as he/she came to be known as. When my husband first seen him, he likened the bird to the cartoon Toucan Sam from commercials, so Sam he became. Sam wasn’t always easy to find on the property, but frequented certain areas where frogs and small critters were known to be in the pools of water, left from the ditch flooding in low lying areas of the property. He was skittish and didn’t seem to like the presence of people, but didn’t pay much attention to farm equipment. So my best chance of seeing Sam closer, was from the cab of the tractor or skid steer.  Sam seemed to pal around with young blue heron that frequented the same pools, though he preferred to stride away versus fly. When I say stride, imagine an over 3-4 foot bird with long legs.

As word got out, I offered a few “bird” people the opportunity to visit the property, to prove he existed and give them the opportunity to see for themselves the rare sight from the side by side we used to work on the property. They would meet me and I would drive them within 50 yards of the bird, and pointed him out when they had trouble recognizing the big oddity. Some would bring fancy cameras to get their own pictures, with some of the biggest telephoto lenses I had ever seen in person. Sam was not always cooperative, not seemingly comfortable with the attention he was receiving, but always able to be seen from a distance. That came to an abrupt halt when one person put the coordinates to the property on a website, which is private and not open to anyone trapesing across.

But I was approached by a local zoo person, asking for the opportunity to see Sam. There was concern for Sam surviving the winter and discussion of how he had come to be here. I am usually of the thought that nature provides the means in spite of what humans think is in their best interest, but was willing to assist in the plan to try to capture Sam and relocate him for the greater good.

As time went by, no zoo had reported a marabou stork missing from their compounds, so the thought process was he escaped from a private aviary somewhere, as he did have bands on his legs that weren’t able to be read from the photos. Marabou storks are also documented as pooing down their legs regularly, so no surprise there. A plan was made with the zoo personnel to build a netted catch pen, lure him in, and then capture. The best laid plans often fail, and Sam was an unwilling participant at best.

Weeks passed checking on Sam almost daily just to visualize him, note his patterns of behavior, and ensure he was still getting enough to eat since the weather was getting colder and his food sources were going into hibernation. Trail camera documented his movements and provided some candid pictures I couldn’t get in person. He began wading the edges of the lake, possibly for fish that might swim close enough. And as marabou storks are a carrion type bird, kin to the vulture, and he was supplied with deer hunter leftovers as well. The zoo persons provided some frozen fish their penguins didn’t like, to place in the netted catch pen to see if he would enter to eat. Though nice in theory, the local wildlife would also scavenged the area as well. We did have to cut a small hole in the net one day, to free an entrapped opossum who wound itself up. Sam did eat a few fish, but didn’t seem overly thrilled them or easily enticed inside the netted enclosure. He started traveling to areas of the property closer to people and the road. And one day, he just wasn’t found anymore. The question was if he had been caught by a coyote or other predator, or migrated further south. That big of a bird would have left feathers a plenty if a predator had nabbed him, so my vote was for migration. I watched along the roads, lanes, tree lines, and waters edges of nearby properties when passing by. I only had one possible sighting, along a railroad lane, but it was too brief an impression to be positive. Over a year has gone by and I often wonder where he ended up, or if he was observed by people again. With all the nature preserves in our area, who knows. But with his wing span of almost 6-7 feet, he could have flown anywhere he wanted.

 

Bees, deer, and memories

January 4, 2026

 

Yesterday was a pretty good day. We made the trip to a bigger town to buy chicken feed, then made the trip to the property to check on the bees. Since it was in the mid-40s’, I didn’t worry about putting on the bee jacket with the hood, and I since I had a warm jacket on. The goal was to check on the sugar patty to see how much had been consumed, and there was enough left to last at least a few more weeks. This is my first winter to have bees to care for, so I have been worried about them. I only cracked the inner sanctum a few seconds, but the workers were crawling upwards, and the buzzing was dually noted. We hunted a few supplies to curtain a few potential air leaks where the cold winds could cause problems. Necessity is always the mother of invention, and we proved that yesterday with an empty dog food bag split up the sides and some small nails with plastic fittings normally used to hold wire in place.  We also moved a tail camera over to the bee area, just to see if they get any traffic in their area. So at sunset, I seen a nice young doe grazing in the area. I love all the nature. The next project will be to mix up another sugar patty to slide in the feeder, I got this.

While we were checking things out around the property, we jumped a few does in different areas, fixed a barb wire strand that had some deer damage. The tracks and the trail to the fence told the whole story. It was grey cool day, but it does my mind good to get out and lay eyes on the acres we have worked so hard to clear and maintain, from what it was when we bought it several years ago.

When we first started working with the property, it was covered in briars, saplings that were full of thorns, and invasive Bradford Pear trees. Of course, there were some hardwood trees too, so the selective deforestation, as I called it, began to take shape. I started off with bush hogging with an old 4020 tractor. I wasn’t familiar with the land, which wasn’t always flat, so it was a bit nerve wracking working around and between the small lakes. This is coming from a town raised woman, who was a nurse for over 20 years, and hadn’t driven a tractor since I was a teenager working on my grandfather’s melon farm. But it was so satisfying, clearing acre by acre of growth you couldn’t see over, to gentle pastures that are visible now. My husband said I was responsible for the clutch not working right now.

I even dug a stock pond in an area that a bit swampy in the winter, and thrilled it holds water all year round. That was the phase of my life where I learned to operate heavy machinery, and cleared groves of black locust trees. The brush piles still speak for themselves. The piles had to age a while before they would burn, so it was a process. One time, we had a brush pile that was almost the length of a football field and taller than the tractor. My husband used a bulldozer to push that mess together, and it was a beast, and burned it for about 3 days. But I took the rest out with a tractor, and later a skid steer. Those were good days, and worth all the blood, sweat, and tears. The goal was to build a house on the property, move there and develop a small working farm from the reclaimed strip mine land. Not believing that will ever happen at this point, because life often takes turns we can’t expect or anticipate. Be we live, learn, and continue to work to survive what it throws at us. The agriculture programs we had been participating in were trimmed from the Federal government, so that was income that was slashed from our budget too. The goal has now become to not lose everything we worked so hard for.