Storks - the Symbol of Poland

Do they not know what date is is then....or have they come back early for some sort of meeting...?

The cranes have begun returning last week or so.

Does this mean we will have a good summer...?

cranes are usually back a couple of weeks before storks

Indeed. The stork are on the way back. Any birder's here? There are a few treats in Poland.

guys, if you want to watch storks live, here is the link to all the cameras:

STORKS ONLINE
bocianyonline.pl/kamery.html

:)

I don't know anything about storks even though my grandmother's last name was Boćian.

Every forth stork is from Poland.

The newest photos of Polish storks:

superstition about storks bringing babies

can someone tell me why it is so?

culture.polishsite.us/articles/art350.html - Storks make the Best Parents

I just saw a wonderful piece on TVP about some storks who "ryzykowaly" (took the risk) to come to Poland from Africa despite the cold and snow and were shown all this love and attention from the locals. It really was very touching to see the locals feed the birds and worry so about them. Apparently, nothing unites a village like the presence of a mating pair of storks.

Pretty birds. When I saw real ones in Germany as kid I thought them kinda scary. I thought they looked different for some reason. ^_^
I even dreamed last year a Stork nest fell thru my roof ..lol.

lol
does that confer an abundace of luck if the roof caves in? :)
..........If I'm not mistaken, they are also revered in Germany?

seemed so... the home across from the Weiss family farm outside Nuremberg had a nest. Everyone seemed thrilled.
My German was juvenile at best in that time. The international language of food is why I wanted to stay. YUM!
It was big and empty when we visited again a few years later in winter. Looked like a roc nest!

My guy said it was fortuitous dream. My dream self was horrified...LAWL. Boy if it means luck I'm gonna strike the lottery soon >_<

Those ones pictures look so elegant

I had NEVER seen a stork until I had my first sighting back in 1978.
I, like most New Jerseyans my age, had only heard and read about them.
I was enthralled, to put it simply.
And to see their nests! Magnificent.
I re-tell the experience to my daughter (apparently ad nauseum) over and over again.
I can't wait to bring her to Poland and show her myself!

I love my beautiful Poland .I am living in Norway now from 3 years, but honestly ,Poland is more beautiful that Norway -1 milion times more :) . I remember ,when I was young I sang,, Bocian kiszka przynieś mi braciszka":D

I remember reading an article where a map seemed to suggest that Polish storks spent their winter in South Africa, not north Africa. Could that be correct?

bocianiakraina.pl/strzelce/kamera1.html
First ones arrive!!

Already here on the bay in Puck :) Not as elegant as the heron maybe, but nice to see them, to see them nice :)

They're massively killed in Lebanon:
greenprophet.com/2014/10/europeans-try-to-save-storks-then-this-happens-over-lebanon-warning-graphic-images/

Storks are leaving for Africa early this year. No worry - it doesn`t foretell severe winter. :):):)

onet.pl/informacje/onetwiadomosci/w-tym-roku-bociany-zbieraja-sie-do-odlotu-wczesniej/mc7lhpb,79cfc278

Young storks leave Poland earlier than usual
In many stork nests, there are no more young ones - they flew away a week ago, but their parents will wait another 1-2 weeks, resting in the silence of an abandoned nest. There are a lot of young this year, although the birds arrived later - says prof. Piotr Tryjanowski from the Poznań University of Life Sciences.

In the past, it was believed that bird families leave together, and the young learn how to travel from adults. Yet, the younger ones, those with a gray-orange beak and legs, mobilize much earlier than the older ones, with intensely red beaks. Siblings don't necessarily wander together.

However, first of all, adult birds that have not had offspring or have lost them - usually due to predators, fights with other storks or due to weather and random causes (fall of a pole with a nest, thunderstorms, hail) depart first.

- This year everything is different. The storks arrived late, but they did their parental work very efficiently. The number of young in many places in Poland is therefore above average, our pessimistic visions from the beginning of the breeding season definitely did not come true - says Prof. Tryjanowski.

The assumption that the birds will leave later than usual is also not confirmed. For reasons that are difficult for researchers to explain, storks "curl up" about 10 days or two weeks earlier than the normal long-term average. It has nothing to do with a potentially cold winter - scientists once tried to check the relationship between the stork's departure time and the harsh winter, but they have not been proven; the data was a "chaotic cloud of points

The phenomenon of "stork assemblies" can be observed on plowed fields and mown meadows. "If there are 30-40 storks feeding in the field, it is a clear sign that they are gathering to depart. Flight is a very expensive way of moving and you need to prepare yourself energetically for it. That's why planes refuel at the airport, and storks find a place where there is more food to fill up before the journey to African wintering grounds" - explains Prof. Tryjanowski.

Stork assembly called Little Parliament in Polish

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Looks like they're discussing but they're just looking for some free frog before they go.

Frogs are highly stereotyped prey for storks. Field mice and grubs is more accurate here.

bociany.pl/zerowisko-i-pokarm-bociana-bialego/

Stork feeding grounds in Poland are mainly wetlands. These include wet meadows, pastures, shallow water reservoirs, edges of ponds and rivers. These are places rich in food throughout the season, even during a particularly dry year. Periodically, birds also use agricultural fields cultivated by humans. This takes place mainly during field work, such as plowing, harvesting.

The white stork is a non-specialized predator that hunts all creatures it can swallow. Its diet includes:

Invertebrates (earthworms, leeches, snails, mussels, crustaceans, beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, insect larvae);
Fish;
Amphibians (frogs, newts);
Reptiles (snakes, lizards);
Chicks of birds nesting on the ground;
Small mammals (voles, mice, moles, shrews).

When looking for prey, storks use their eyesight, which is why they choose areas with not very high vegetation. Although a foraging stork is usually associated with a bird walking in a meadow, it can also stand still at the water's edge or a rodent's burrow, lying in wait for its prey. Because the most profitable foraging strategy is to get as much food as possible with minimal effort, birds prey on the most numerous and easily obtainable animals. Despite the common belief that frogs are the most important food for storks, today they are only a supplement to the stork diet.This is probably due to the clear reduction of breeding sites and the falling occurrence of amphibians in the last few decades. In the event of a particular abundance of some type of food, the birds quickly adapt to the situation and switch to a new, easy prey. This is what happens, for example, in the "mouse years", when rodents occur en masse. They then constitute the dominant component of the diet of storks, and a pair of birds raises, on average, at least one more young.

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I have never seen a stork in my field or in the vicinity. The area is a bit hilly, hardly wet.

How about adopting a stork for the Polish emblem??? There are a few stork emblems and coats of arms already, e.g, of small towns or noble families.

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