Practice makes the master

Life is going on in the storks nests across Europe. The nestlings are growing, and even though they are still mainly thinking about eating and drinking, they are already preparing for the first big journey.

Their wings are getting bigger and stronger, and they are practicing their first flight. Practice makes the master, and they must become masters soon.

We must say goodbye to them soon, but in the next few weeks we will be able to watch their first flights. If you cannot observe because there is not a stork's nests near you, then watching through the webcams and the video below as well! ;-)

White Stork Webcams on the Map >>

Storks on the main street on a hot summer day (Görbeháza, Hungary)

Date: June 25, 2019

Görbeháza is a village in Eastern Hungary, Hajdú-Bihar county.
Human Population: 2366 (2015) 

There are 37 White Stork nests in the village. 17 nests are on the main street (Böszörményi Street).

In the summer the Storks are the main attraction in this street. It seems that the breeding success will be good this year.

 

Wings grow - Summary from mid-May to mid-June

What has happened in recent weeks in White Storks nests around Europe? Here is a brief summary of some of the nests from mid-May to mid-June.

White Stork webcams :: Daily Summary :: June 1, 2019

The next video is a brief summary of the situation of stork nests across Europe on June 1.

 

Livestreams (in the order in the video):

• Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Spain
• Ráckeresztúr, Hungary
• Cristian, Romania
• Alfaro, Spain
• Gögglingen, Germany
• Sarralbe, France
• Altlandsberg, Germany
• Lesko, Poland

Stork trip on the last day of March

March ends with another @WStorkWatching video. Check out on YouTube!

Storks of El Badi Palace

@WStorkWatching's first short video is ready. Check out on YouTube and please press the LIKE button if you liked it! ;-)

This place was on the bucket list, not by chance. On March 16, we visited the El Badi Palace and its Storks, and made a short video about them. I highly recommend that you should look at it if you like the White Storks! ;-)

Wikipedia: El Badi Palace (Arabic: قصر البديع‎; meaning The incomparable palace) is a ruined palace located in Marrakesh, Morocco. It was commissioned by the sultan Ahmad al-Mansur of the Saadian dynasty sometime shortly after his accession in 1578. It is currently a popular tourist attraction.

The most popular tweets

@WStorkWatching has 70 followers on Twitter. What were the most popular tweets in the past two and a half months?

The table below shows the top 3.

The winner is only 3 days old. What was its secret? It's not hard to guess. A cute stork video on Valentine's Day. That's the secret: published on the right day and using a good hashtag.

Activity Until 17 Feb 2019	1st	2nd	3rd
Tweet Date	14 Feb 2019	6 Feb 2019	11 Jan 2019
Impressions	2759	1352	794
Media views	401
Total engagements	95	38	29
Media engagements	47	15	15
Likes	21	7	4
Detail expands	9	3
Retweets	7	4	3
Profile clicks	7	2	5
Hashtag clicks	3	2
Replies	1
Link clicks		5	2

Here is the top 3

Romantic moments 💕 #HappyValentinesDay #WhiteStorks #webcam #Sarralbe #France pic.twitter.com/XIMoBPhmCq

— White Stork Watching (@WStorkWatching) February 14, 2019

Let's see where the GPS tagged #WhiteStorks are now? If you install the #AnimalTracker app, you can watch it every day! #screenshot@animaltracking @MovebankTeam pic.twitter.com/fRGzyuD8xh

— White Stork Watching (@WStorkWatching) February 6, 2019

#WhiteStork in dozens of languages #wordcloud from @KarolyNagy #ornithology #stork pic.twitter.com/EbBEMF0ZHT

— White Stork Watching (@WStorkWatching) January 11, 2019

What did the storks do in their nests in January?

What? If they were at home, mainly stood in the nest and didn't do anything else.
Of course this was just a joke. Or not? :)

#WSWW2019 in January:

• Total number of nests observed: 112
• Total number of observations: 756

When White Storks were observed in one of the nests, they stood in 89.1 percent of the cases. In addition, they often were sitting (12.6%) or preening (10.9%). Rarely observed when the Storks arrived or fly away. For more details look at the graph below.

As most of the working webcams are in Germany, of course, the observations were mostly in german nests.

In January, 88 observation forms were uploaded from Höchstadt's webcam nest! 

The only time that 3 adult Storks were observed in a nest was also here. :)

You can see below how frequent the observations were in  hours of the day, and the Storks presence / absence in the nest.

Summary of the first two months

The blog started 2 months ago, so it's time for a brief summary.

@WStorkWatching have currently 222 followers on Instagram and 51 on Twitter.

Follow @WStorkWatching on Instagram!

Already 177 webcams available on the Map, from 14 countries.

White Stork Webcams on the Map
Clicking will open the Map

In January we started collecting the monitoring data and after 20 days we have 534 data in the database. Up to now 101 different webcams have been observed.
Of course, most of the nests are still empty, so the observations are not frequent, but from March this activity will certainly be more interesting.

Some graphs of observations

T-shirts, long-sleeved shirts and mugs are available on the Teespring website.

#WStorkWatching #Puzzle Put the pieces in the right place. Let's do this project together! 😉 #WhiteStorks #community #withoutborders pic.twitter.com/UeicdMouY9 — White Stork Watching (@WStorkWatching) January 17, 2019

New Year, new tool

Just 4 days ago, I wrote about the new map, and as the New Year came, a new tool arrived as well.

If you occasionally or regularly watch one or more webcams, you can upload your observations here. >>

Save at least one snapshot of that webcam (use the PrtSc key and cut the webcam image) and upload it with the data.

Data collection works on voluntary, if you prefer, do not hesitate and join. ;-)

This data collection is already linked to 2nd Goal:

• " Involvement of the community in the observation of White Stork populations. #study #volunteer #CitizenScience "

The header of the data collection form
Clicking will open the form

Saved and properly cut snapshot from Cărpiniș
Clicking will open webcam page

Saved and properly cut snapshot from Höchstadt
Clicking will open webcam page

The Stork presence in the nest, one of the most important questions. 

Observed behaviors and events - You can choose from many options.

You can also view graphs of results.

This table shows data uploaded on the last days.
Click here to view the table in full size.