The first storks are back from their winter quarters, just in time for the beginning of spring at the beginning of March. As soon as it gets a little warmer, they start courtship. The population of white storks has recovered significantly, but the black storks are doing badly.
Minden/Isselburg (dpa/lnw) - The first white storks have returned to North Rhine-Westphalia from their winter quarters in the south. In the Weseraue in the Minden-Lübbecke district - the stork stronghold of NRW - 40 pairs and 28 single storks have already been counted on their nests, said the board member in the Nabu district association Minden-Lübbecke, Hermann Nagel. The animals made a healthy impression; apparently they would find enough food, said Nagel. As soon as it gets a little warmer, courtship and then reproduction of the animals begin.
Last year, 132 breeding pairs were counted in this stork area alone, which raised 252 young birds. That was about 15 pairs more than in the previous year.
The storks no longer fly to sub-Saharan Africa on their way to their winter quarters, but save themselves the strenuous and dangerous crossing of the Strait of Gibraltar, Nagel said. Apparently they found enough food in Spain and southern France. The first returning storks have already been spotted on the Lower Rhine, said Ulrike Waschau from the Nabu Niederrhein nature conservation station in Kleve.
In 2021, 609 pairs of storks had bred in North Rhine-Westphalia, according to earlier information from the Stiftung Storche NRW in Isselburg. In 1991, however, the up to 1.10 meter tall wading birds had reached a low point with only three breeding pairs left in NRW, as reported by the State Environment Agency. The food of storks consists mainly of mice, insects, earthworms and frogs.
Unlike the white stork, the breeding numbers of the rare and shy black stork, which mainly inhabits mixed forests in the low mountain ranges, have been declining since 2015. In NRW, the number of black storks is estimated at just 80 breeding pairs, as Nabu announced on Thursday. The causes include impacts on deciduous trees and climate change with drought, large dead spruce stands and dry streams.
