The oriental white stork (Ciconia boyciana) is one of the largest birds, with a wing span of up to two meters. Its breeding territory extends from the Amur to the Ussuri River in east Siberia, and 2500 individuals estimated still exist worldwide. According to the IUCN red list, however, the survival of this species is still in peril. Yellow River Estuary nature reserve had become their new breeding sites since 2005. From March to June in 2008 and 2009, the forage habitat use of Oriental white stork during its breeding season was studied in the Yellow River Estuary nature reserve by the methods of fixed-spot observation, GPS positioning, sampling plot investigation and stepwise discriminant analysis, by the methods of fixed-spot observation, GPS positioning, sampling plot investigation and stepwise discriminant analysis. With a forage site as the center, a 1m × 1m square quadrat was Set up, and another four square samples were installed of 5-10 miles around the first square quadrat. Based on the previous research methods and the actual situation, 14 ecological factors were determined as follows: vegetation type, vegetation height, vegetation density, vegetation coverage, sheltering class, water depth in quadrat, the distance to water, the distance to the reed marsh, the distance to the serious disturbance, the distance to the mild disturbance, the distance to grassland, the distance to forests, distance to nest and the distance to farmland. In order to ensure the randomness of quadrats the study area will be divided into 256 areas with equal or similar size, in which the quadrat must be covered. If the Oriental white stork foraged within the quadrats, this quadrat would be removed. A total of 75 foraging and 74 random plots were measured and analyzed in each site. The Oriental white stork preferred water depth of about 20cm, the reed marsh and the beach, while they avoided grassland and farmland. Comparing the used sites with the random plots, the used sites were characterized by lower vegetation height and density, lower water depth, shorter distance to water source, the reed marsh and forests, farther to the serious disturbance, and more abundance of food. Nine ecological factors which had significant difference were analyzed using Spearman's rank correlation test, and the correlation coefficients were less than 0.6. Stepwise discriminant analysis indicated that distance to the reed marsh, water depth in quadrat, distance to the serious disturbance, distance to the serious disturbance, food abundance, distance to water were critically factors to discriminate foraging sites and random plots. The overall classification model developed from five variables was successful to distinguish the used sites from random ones at probability of 95. 5%. Water, human disturbance and food are main factors which affect foraging habitat use of Oriental white stork during its breeding season.