Storks (Family Ciconiidae) - Bird of the Month: March 2013

[Lisbeth]

Marrakech, Marocco. The nest is built on a pillar of the old entrance to the town. January.




shows the city wall!

[Lisbeth]

Cordoba, Spain - Decembre

[Mel]

Beautiful storks here!

Question: I read that white storks are usually monogamous, Toko's info give the same
for the openbill. Hence I reckon they all are - unless breeding fails (that's what it is
like with the white storks at least)?

BTW, the first one has arrived here in Central Europe some days ago.
A good sign that spring is on its way - even if takes another 4 to 6 weeks.

[nan]

Avenches (Switzerland) May/June 2010

White Stork/Cigogne blanche

they make babies here... then go to Africa



almost ready





with the fog

[Amoli]

Thanks Nan...

We will hardly ever see the nesting of some of these storks in South Africa - thank you all so much for sharing with us.

[Toko]

Amoli, who knows, but perhaps you will see less white storks in Africa .

Among the white storks the trend is to stay in Europe. More and more white storks overwinter no longer in the south, but stay throughout the year on their sites. Usually they went in August to the south and made ​​their long flight to Africa. Most of them, about 70% of German white storks took, and still take the western route via Spain, Gibraltar and the coast of Mauritania to the West African Sahel. But the majority of European storks travel on the eastern route, via Turkey, the Bosporus, the eastcoast of the Mediterranean Sea, Israel, the Arabian Peninsula and follow the Nile, and then split for the Sahel or the flight to South Africa. A few years ago several German storks decided not to go south and now we have a large number of permanent residents here.
This is a map of the Bavarian nesting sites of January 2013, white marks are nests without storks, the yellow and orange marks show sites with storks present. Quite a lot.



And then there are the partial migrants. The first storks have returned from their wintering grounds to Bavaria. Probably these birds have spent the winter in Spain and did not go further south. The storks that come back from Africa on the western route via Gibraltar or on the eastern route are expected to arrive only in March and April.

[leachy]

[nan]

Gland (30 km from Lausanne) September 2010

White Stork/Cigogne blanche

on the church



by night
early morning

with a plane... to Africa

[nan]

Kgalagadi February 2011

White Stork/Cigogne blanche
only one



Kgalagadi January 2012

maybe the same than last year , but this time with cousins

[Lisbeth]

White stork