Storks: Masters in Low Energy Movement

To cover a long distance the stork needs a thermic which is built up over larger landscapes. This thermic is created during the day when the ground is heating up through the sun. Near the ground worm air rises up. This updraft enables storks to circle up to a higher height. Then they glide to the next termal tube. This is why storks choose an overland route on their flight between Africa and Europe.

About 75 percent of beeding White Storks in Germany take an eastern route to fly to their destination.

Eastern storks move from their birth places towards the Black Sea. They come from northern parts of Germany, Denmark, Poland, the Baltic States, Russia, White Russisa, the Ukrane, the Chechen Republic, Slowakia, Bosnia and Herzegowina, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, Albania, Greece and Turkey. They cross the Bosporus and arrive at the Sinai Peninsula over Lebanon, Israel and Palastine. They pass the gulf of Suez to Egypt. From there on the storks follow the Delta of the Nile down to the south. They get a long break of a few weeks in the Savannah and the semi-desert, while they gorge themeselves to get enough energy for the continuation on to East and Southern Africa.

The storks need eight to fifteen weeks to cover a distance of more than 10.000 kilometers from Europe to South Africa.

Western storks fly to the areas of the Sahel and the south of the Sahara Desert between Senegal and Chad. One of the important destinations is the inland delta of the Niger river in Mali.

In Africa the White storks prefer the areas of the sarvannha, where they look for food amongst zebras, giraffes and marabous. Mostly they hunt locusts and other insects. But storks also get frogs and fish as food in the wetlands.

If swarms of migratory locusts or other big swarms of insects cross their way, the storks gather in huge groups to hunt tham. Once in Tanzania over a hundred thousand White storks and forty thousand African White-bellied Storks where observed, when there was an mass outbreak of the African Dark-Winged Fungus Gnats came together to hunt big swarms of the African Armyworm (catarpillar of a moth) in an area of 25 Square Kilometer.

Terefor we may believe that a successful pest control programme makes life difficult for storks and other birds.