Spring is here: the storks are back in Brandenburg

From BZ/dpa

Over the next few weeks, a familiar rattling can be heard on roofs, old chimneys and masts: the first storks have returned to Brandenburg and are preparing for their offspring. The Nabu white stork expert for southern Brandenburg, Holger Teichert, has already sighted some of the majestic birds in the Elbe-Elster district. For the coming days he expects the arrival of numerous other storks. Storks were also sighted in the Spreewald, the Prignitz or East Brandenburg.

Many stayed in Europe

The first to come back are the so-called winter refugees who took the western route. According to Teichert, they have a shorter route and have an advantage over the “eastern migrants” because they do not have to fly to North Africa.

Many no longer changed the continent, but stayed in Spain or France, said stork specialist Teichert. There they usually looked for space near garbage dumps. “A feast, there are rats and mice. However, there are also dangers lurking, because storks can injure themselves on plastic waste residues.”

The white storks, which return via the eastern route, therefore have to deal with more dangers during their flight. Sometimes the onset of winter slowed down their flight due to a lack of thermals when flying back over the eastern Mediterranean, the Bosphorus and the Balkans.

The first “Eastern migrants” have already landed in the stork village of Rühstädt (Prignitz). The head of the Nabu visitor center, Jan Dierks, has counted at least six birds and hopes that the more than 40 nests will be occupied by pairs of storks in the coming weeks.

Fewer offspring

Teichert and Dierks as well as the white stork center in Vetschau in the Spreewald are hoping for more offspring this year. In the Spreewald there are about 100 nests for the couples. Breeding time is therefore in May, in June the young would fledge. Brandenburg is therefore considered to be the federal state with the most storks. But the number of young storks has been declining for years. The past year was a bad one for the offspring due to the drought, said Teichert. The number of young storks has fallen by about ten percent in the south.

A lack of food meant that some white storks were no longer able to raise their young. There was no water in nearby ditches and there were fewer worms and small insects. “Storks that are not fed remove young animals,” explained Teichert. At the moment he sees good conditions for forage due to the rain.

According to the expert, the stork can adapt to its environment and can also change its diet. “Birds, mice, amphibians, grasshoppers, snakes – storks will eat anything they can swallow,” said Teichert. Young birds would be raised with worms. However, major changes in land use caused problems for the birds. Areas would be drained and green areas to arable land, the use of pesticides or collisions with power lines or wind turbines are also a danger.

What are the rings for?

In June, the expert from the Elbe-Elster district rings the young storks: to explore the migration routes, to determine their age and to find out where the animals settle. The ringing also benefits the Prignitz stork expert Dierks. A stork that regularly arrives in Rühstädt from South Africa needs a month to travel the approximately 10,000 kilometers, he calculated using the data.

All data is collected in the so-called ringing center Hiddensee. Up to 200,000 ringings of different bird species are received there every year, said Teichert. The head office is responsible for the eastern Baltic Sea region, northern and eastern Germany. The regional representatives can also get data on storks from there.