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<\/a>Clear evidence came from the “arrow storks”: animals repeatedly appeared with African hunters’ arrows lodged in their bodies. This proved that storks had indeed been in distant Africa. When birds were fitted with leg rings at the beginning of the 20th century and recaptured and recorded at various locations, the diverse intercontinental travel routes of migratory birds were discovered. Since the beginning of our century, tiny, solar-powered telemetry transmitters with GPS have been used. They can be easily attached to the animal and, depending on the model, provide not only exact position data but also a wealth of other information. Since August 2018, the ICARUS experimental system has been located on the exterior of the ISS space station. Since then, the signals of these wanderers can be transmitted and analyzed even more effectively. This biologging technology allows real-time tracking of birds’ activities. With live cams at nesting, courtship, and feeding sites, they can also be observed around the clock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite all the technical effort and many exciting discoveries, we are still far from having a “transparent bird,” and many questions remain unanswered. The white stork (Ciconia ciconia<\/em>), which appears in six verses in the Bible as chasida<\/em> (Lev 11:19; Deut 14:18; Job 39:13; Ps 104:17; Jer 8:7; Zech 5:9), is among the most interesting and well-studied migratory birds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The presence of storks is unmistakable, as it is accompanied by loud clattering. They clatter to greet and threaten each other, to court, to calm their young, to warn of dangers, and out of sheer joy of life. No wonder these tireless noisemakers, who seem to compensate for their weak voices in this way, are commonly referred to as “clattering storks.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n They are also hard to miss visually: the long beak and even longer legs shine in bright red, and the radiant white plumage on the chest and back contrasts sharply with the black flight feathers. Additionally, they grow to about one meter tall, prefer to stand where they have a good overview, and are therefore easy to observe. Males and females look exactly alike; he is only slightly larger and heavier than she, and it takes a lot of experience to tell them apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No one knows exactly how the stork came to be associated with delivering newborns. Besides mystical ideas that see the stork as a sacred bird spending much time in water \u2013 a symbol for the beginning of new life and containing the souls of children \u2013 there are also more rational approaches. Its massive nest could easily be a cradle. Farmers may have planned the birth of their children for the less busy time in February and March, coinciding with the storks’ return from winter quarters. Perhaps their caring nature and the loving interaction between the pair made them seem like ideal parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Statistically, there is indeed a correlation between birth rates and the number of stork breeding pairs in 17 European countries. Thus, the old legend has found its way into many statistics textbooks, illustrating that a constructed mathematical relationship (correlation) is not the same as an actual causal relationship (causality).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even in their absence, their homes are immediately recognizable: in an elevated location with a 360\u00b0 panorama, storks build a massive stick nest, which can become even larger than that of native birds of prey and is therefore also called an “aerie.” No European bird builds anything bigger! Nowadays, they almost always use human-made structures in our regions, but where these are entirely absent, they nest on the tops of tall, slender trees \u2013 just as described in Psalm 104:17: “The stork has its home in the junipers.” However, since there are generally few suitable places and large branches are needed for the elaborate substructure, bird enthusiasts gladly support the construction project by attaching pallets and shallow wicker baskets as nesting aids on chimneys, masts, or roof gables in preferred breeding areas. On such a solid foundation, the newcomer can immediately start layering and invest more time and energy into the subsequent breeding business. The elaborately designed nesting site, a valuable joint property of the pair, is the “glue in their relationship,” because although they are considered faithful partners and often stay together for life, their true love is for their home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Typically, an optimally located nest is used again every breeding season for decades. To keep the pair together, it’s important that both adhere precisely to the “schedule,” as the journey to Africa for the “winter vacation” is undertaken individually, sometimes thousands of kilometers apart. Upon return, the male, who arrives first, waits a maximum of one week for the female \u2013 before assuming she didn’t make it and seeking a new partner. That sounds harsh, but the risk of standing alone on one leg in the high nest all summer is too great. Fortunately, storks are extremely punctual, as Jeremiah describes in the quoted Bible verse. Considering the weeks-long travel time, it’s astonishing that the timing usually aligns so precisely that the short “grace period” of 5-7 days he allows her is sufficient for a happy reunion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The partners celebrate their reunion with hours-long “clattering concerts” and begin renovating their nest and repairing winter damage. Additionally, the three or four grown-up young storks from the previous year had made it quite cramped, trampling down the enclosure all around and turning the neatly shaped nursery into a flat “airfield.” To protect the eggs and nestlings of the new clutch from falling out, the nest is raised, and a deep hollow with a surrounding wall is created. Thus, the structure grows a bit taller each spring with a new layer of twigs. An ancient nest becomes a real fortress, a “tower on the tower,” rising meters high, weighing up to two tons, and having already caused some buildings to collapse. It’s often observed that birds of other species, such as starlings, sparrows, little owls, or kestrels, become subtenants in the compact thicket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Bible compares the stork and the ostrich: \u201cThe wings of the ostrich flap joyfully \u2013 but are they the pinions and plumage of love?\u201d (Job 39:13). At first glance, the contrast seems only to concern their feathers \u2013 and indeed: both are large birds with long legs, but while the ostrich has flightless, shaggy wings, the stork\u2019s wings are a marvel of aerodynamic perfection. In Zechariah 5:9, they are admiringly highlighted in a vision: \u201c…whose wings were lifted by the wind. They had wings like those of a stork,\u201d and the German aviation pioneer Otto Lilienthal considered them the most perfect wing structure in the animal kingdom. They served as a model for his own gliding devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ostrich is later portrayed as neglectful, which further sets it apart from the stork \u2013 whose apt Hebrew name chasida<\/em> means \u201cthe kind, gracious, good-hearted, caring one\u201d or simply: \u201cmotherly.\u201d The pair\u2019s self-sacrificing parenting is legendary and forms the basis of this bird\u2019s nobility. They take turns foraging and never leave the nest unattended. While the young are small, they are fed with pre-digested, regurgitated food, fairly distributed among them. Later, they are allowed to pick apart the prey themselves \u2013 usually fish, amphibians, snakes, small rodents, and insects. The entire family consumes three to five kilograms of food per day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the nest is exposed to the blazing sun on hot summer days, the stork parents spread their wings and stand with their backs to the sun to shade their young from early morning until late afternoon \u2013 panting in the heat themselves. They also make frequent trips to nearby water, fill their gullets to the brim, and release it in fine streams from their \u201cshower head\u201d over the chicks to cool and hydrate them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What unfortunately doesn\u2019t fit this family idyll is a selection process known as cainism<\/em>: when a stork mother feels overwhelmed \u2013 if one of her chicks is weak and food is scarce \u2013 she may eat it or push it out of the nest. This usually happens with inexperienced first-time mothers and increases the survival chances of the stronger offspring. Here we see the difference between \u201cmotherly love\u201d in the animal kingdom \u2013 merely a reproductive strategy \u2013 and true maternal love, which exists only in humans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks to their loving all-inclusive care, the chicks grow into impressive juvenile storks within nine weeks, almost reaching their parents\u2019 size. They set off on their journey south once they\u2019ve survived their first flight attempts and completed a brief \u201cbasic training.\u201d For these inexperienced newcomers, the first journey is extremely dangerous. After five months, over half of them will be dead; after one year, fewer than a third remain. However, they learn quickly and spend their first three years before reaching sexual maturity in sunny Africa. About one fifth survive this phase and return to their old homeland to breed. Those who make it that far stand a good chance of living up to 35 years. An adult stork has virtually no natural predators left. The parents don\u2019t leave with the fledglings, but stay behind for another one or two weeks and enjoy a brief \u201ctime off.\u201d They even engage in courtship play \u2013 not with the aim of breeding again, but to strengthen their bond (so it\u2019s not just<\/em> about the nest) before parting ways for several months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n korken:zieher<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The rough travel routes are set: western European storks are \u201cwestern migrants\u201d that cross the Mediterranean at the Strait of Gibraltar, while eastern European \u201ceastern migrants\u201d cross via the Bosporus through Turkey, the Levant, and Egypt to Africa. The “migration divide” between the two groups runs across Germany. Western and southern German storks migrate west with their French counterparts, while northern and eastern German storks follow the Poles, Balts, and Russians along the eastern route. All are excellent gliders, riding thermal columns up to 2,000 meters in altitude and covering the distance to the next thermal via gliding flight. With this remarkable cruising altitude, they are among the highest-flying birds that can be seen with the naked eye \u2013 a fact even referenced by Jeremiah (\u201cthe stork in the sky\u201d). Although they cannot glide over large bodies of water and only fly during the day, this method is extremely energy-efficient and allows them to travel long distances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a recent study has shown, there are significant differences in soaring skills between individual birds \u2013 even among siblings from the same clutch. Astonishingly, the animals seem to \u201cknow\u201d their strengths and weaknesses and adjust their migration behavior accordingly. The experts fly ahead as \u201cpathfinders\u201d and define the spiral\u2019s position and radius for optimal use of thermals. The less skilled companions can then join the ideal flight path and rise with the current.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Flight skill mastery influences not only group dynamics, but also the choice of wintering grounds. The experts go the distance, while the \u201cflappers\u201d settle for closer refuges and sometimes don\u2019t leave the continent at all, remaining in southern Europe. It is a notable achievement of cutting-edge ornithological field research and modern biologging technology that, using attached acceleration sensors that capture every body movement, one can reliably predict \u2013 after just a few minutes of flight analysis \u2013 whether a young bird is an efficient glider soon to lead a group toward distant South Africa, or whether effortless soaring just isn\u2019t his thing, and he\u2019s more comfortable staying in southern Spain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s much more to say about the stork, but we\u2019ll end this overview with an invitation to take it as a role model: In an astonishing way, Master Adebar (from Old German Odobero<\/em> = \u201cbringer of fortune\u201d) is aware of his strengths and weaknesses, contributes accordingly to the group, and sets realistic goals. We could all take a page from that book: \u201cEach of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God\u2019s grace in its various forms\u201d (1Pet 4:10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Curry, A: The internet of animals that could help to save vanishing wildlife<\/em>. Nature 2018; 562:322-326; doi: 10.1038\/d41586-018-07036-2<\/p>\n\n\n\n Flack, A; Fiedler, W; Blas, J: Costs of migratory decisions: A comparison across eight white stork populations<\/em>. Science Advances; 2016; 2:e1500931<\/p>\n\n\n\n The story of Prinzesschen<\/em>: https:\/\/www.storchenhof-loburg.de\/prinzesschen-63.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>