This year's observation of the same stork in Ukraine may indicate that it was just the eastern Europe that was chosen as a nesting site, which is very unusual for our storks.
"Most of our storks are conservative - nesting too far from the place of birth, ten percent on the contrary, several hundred miles away, mostly in Germany. Interestingly, the observer Andrew Simon writes that our stork was observed along with two other storks and all were sitting on pillars near the former nuclear power plant. From the place of birth in the Znojmo region it is 1020 km, " says Frantisek Pojer of the Czech Nature Protection Agency, who has been monitoring the Black Stork for decades.
Marking of storks with black plastic rings, which can be read by telescope or photography, has been taking place in our country since 1994. Over that time, more than four thousand youngsters have been identified. Each year about twenty ringers are involved in ringing. This is an international program that has been organized by AOPK Czech Republic from the beginning.
At that time, nearly three thousand records of black storks were collected. It was found that the Czech Republic is on the so-called pull-out interface and our storks fly to winter in Africa in two main directions - southwest through Gibraltar and south-east across the Balkans and Israel.
This summer is also remarkable by the relatively early departure of our youngsters, who left the nest mostly during July and a few were encountered in different locations in Germany, but also in France, Italy or Hungary and Serbia.
The number of black storks in the Czech Republic is estimated at approximately 300-400 breeding pairs.
Source: tz Ochrana přírody.cz
