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Sarasota News Leader May 3, 2013 as being so enormous that its feathers measured 12 paces long. It also was reported to be so strong that it could grasp an elephant in its talons, carry the animal to the heavens and then drop it onto a rocky surface, where it smashed the elephant into gory fragments. Afterward the Roc would devour it in a leisurely fashion. Well, this is Siesta Key and stranger things have happened around here! Just as I was about to present you with positive proof of this legendary creature's existence, the fabled Roc, I received a photo from a fisherman who had seen it at the bay's edge during low tide. He wrote, "This is a bad photo but can you identify this bird?" First, let me say it was not a bad photo; it was a dreadful photo! Second, on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being top marks), I rate it a 12! You see, identification is not about pretty photos, it is about identifying and, in this case, solving a mystery; thus preventing an Eastern ScreechOwl (that's me!) from appearing overly imaginative. If it were all about pretty photos, then every passport office and department of motor vehicles facility would require Page 85 Photoshop experts on staff to tweak people's photographic likenesses into something more pleasingly human. Readers, please, do not ever apologize: Just take that photo and send it in with your questions! The Wood Stork (Mycteria americana) is a tall (36 inches to 45 inches) white-feathered Florida native who fishes in shallow brackish swamps and wetlands. Highly gregarious creatures, Wood Storks feed in flocks and nest in huge rookeries, usually with several pairs occupying a single tree. They are the only storks to breed Florida, particularly in our Florida Everglades. And if you learn nothing else from this column but this one fact I will be delighted, for reasons I shall explain later. Photo courtesy of Rick Greenspun