WHITE STORK

A White Stork is a tall long-necked wading bird with long bare red legs and a straight pointed red beak. The white feathers of the head, neck and body contrast with the black highlighted wing feathers. A small patch of bare black skin surrounds its brown eyes.

White Storks occurrence on moist and flat grounds with clumps and medium-height plants.

The birds consume insects, frogs, toads, tadpoles, fish, rodents, snakes, lizards, earthworms, mollusks, crustaceans, and, rarely, the chicks or eggs of ground-nesting birds.

A female usually lays 3-5 eggs, more rarely up to seven. Parents share incubation duties for 33-34 days. Young chicks are covered with white down and have black beaks.

Nests are huge and bulky, constructed of branches and sticks and lined with twigs, grasses, sod, rags, and paper. Particularly old nest have grown to over 2 metres in diameter and nearly 3 metres in depth. Nests can be found in trees, on cliff-ledges, or occasionally on the ground.

They can also be found on rooftops, towers, chimneys, telephone-poles, walls, haystacks.

White Storks migrate to warm countries for winter. When storks come back to Poland from their winter winter quarters in South Africa, they have to cover a distance of 10 thousand kilometers. They fly over the Sudan, Egypt, Asia Minor, Straits of Bosphorus and Bulgaria.

Monika Sztachańska kl. IIIc

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