White stork

Large bird with white plumage and black wings with black tips. Beak and legs red in adults and black in juveniles. Flies with legs and neck outstretched. It will often be seen flying with motionless wings (gliding as it is called) high in the sky as it moves about in search of food.

It has no voice except to flap its beak briefly when disturbed, and the sounds of the rattling of their beaks when the birds are mating and in the nest are well known.

It spreads in Central and Eastern Europe (and to a limited extent in NW Africa), but is absent from large areas of Western Europe. Arrives each spring to breed, while wintering in Africa. It also occurs in isolated areas of Central Asia which overwinter in the Indian Peninsula. In Africa (below the Sahara) it remains year-round. Many birds in Portugal, Spain, France and other western European countries overwinter without migrating south. In the past the stork of Polychthon has wintered (twice).

Avoiding migrating over the sea, it crosses the Mediterranean Sea through Gibraltar and the Bosphorus, and so thousands of birds are observed

It lives in areas where forests and closed vegetation are absent and can find wetlands and crops.

In Lesvos it nests in Papiana, Kalloni, Dafia, Agia Paraskevi and Polychnitos and a little earlier in Eresos, Mantamados and Ipeios. It is with us from March to August.

• It feeds near water (marshes, torrents, etc.) but very often also on land, walking and locating its prey before hitting it with its large beak. It prefers amphibians and reptiles, large insects and fish but sometimes carrion. In other countries they are often seen foraging in rubbish dumps. It is common to see storks following machinery ploughing or harvesting fields where they can successfully feed.
• They nest in buildings, poles, etc. and here on Lesvos in the chimneys of old oil mills. Often several pairs nest together in large trees etc. They lay 1-7 eggs that both parents clutch for 33-34 days and the young are able to leave the nest at over two months of age (58-64 days later).
• A White Stork with a small African spear around its neck (someone tried to chase it and didn't succeed) arrived in 1822 at its nest in (today's) Germany and so we understood - this was recorded 24 other times in various European regions - that migrating birds go to Africa. Until then we thought that they hibernate hidden, reload or migrate to the moon and other things that today seem funny to us!
• In the middle of the last century their populations suffered a very large decline which, fortunately, was reversed from the 1980s onwards.
• Unfortunately, thousands of White Stroks are still killed (hunted) in Lebanon and Syria every autumn as they migrate.
• They mature and can nest at an age of usually 4 years.
• The oldest White Stork reached 33 years old!
• The White Stork is related to the Black Stork and the island of Lesvos is the only one in the Mediterranean where both species breed.