White Stork

Voice

Essentially voiceless. At the nest the pair greet each other by bill-clattering, a dry rattling kle-kle-kle-klepper with the head thrown back over the shoulders, mainly from March to July. Young hiss and wheeze hoarsely; otherwise this bird is silent.

Identification

Large and white with black flight feathers, a long straight red bill and long red legs. In flight the neck is held outstretched and the feet project well beyond the tail; it soars on flat wings with spread fingers, circling in thermals. Juveniles have a duller, dark-tipped bill and brownish-black flight feathers.

Confusion species

Black Stork is dark with a white belly, shyer and tied to forest streams. Great White Egret is smaller, wholly white, and flies with the neck retracted. Common Crane is grey, with a black-and-white head and a bustle, migrating in V-formation while bugling. Outstretched neck plus red bill settles it instantly.

Habitat

Damp grassland, stream valleys, floodplains and extensively farmed land with frogs, voles and large insects. Nests high and open: on poles, chimneys, church towers and pylons, in Iberia often in colonies on a single church roof or eucalyptus.

Range and movements

Strong in Iberia, Poland and eastern Germany. The Dutch population, once almost extinct, has recovered through reintroduction and again breeds in stream valleys and polders. Migration follows two land routes around the Mediterranean: east over the Bosphorus, west over the Strait of Gibraltar.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• Migration direction
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

Late March at a nest pole, when pairs clatter and build in full view. For the migration spectacle go to Tarifa in August, around midday when thermals build and hundreds of storks screw up over the strait together.

Conservation status

Strongly recovered after the twentieth-century collapse, helped by protection, reintroduction and the end of the worst persecution. Loss of damp grassland and pesticide use still bite, and collision and electrocution on power lines kill many birds each year.