Black stork
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Black stork ( Ciconia nigra ) |
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| Ciconia nigra | ||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The black stork ( Ciconia nigra ) is next to the white stork ( Ciconia ciconia ) the only breeding species in Europe from the bird family of the storks (Ciconiidae).
In contrast to the white stork, the black stork is a shy inhabitant of old, closed forests that have still and flowing waters. Despite the very large distribution area, no subspecies are distinguished.
Appearance
The black stork is slightly smaller than the white stork ( Ciconia ciconia ). The top, head, neck and front chest are shiny black, the plumage shimmers metallic, depending on the incidence of light, greenish, purple, but also copper-colored. Only the chest, belly, the part of the lower wing near the trunk and the under tail-covers are white. The females are only slightly more dull in color than the males, their beak is mostly straight, while that of the males appears to be slightly curved upwards. There is no difference between the sexes in terms of weight and height. The adult bird's beak and legs are bright red during the breeding season, but brownish to matt dark red in the plain dress. The bare skin around the eyes and the base of the beak are also brightly reddish in color during the breeding season. The legs of the young birds are yellow-green in the first year and slowly change from brownish tones to reddish. Their beak is dark brown with a slightly rusty tinge. The plumage color is duller, rather deep brown-black, the metallic shimmer is missing.
Adult bird
Young bird
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Flight image and flight
Even in flight, the black stork can hardly be confused in its Palearctic breeding areas. In the wintering area, a cursory inspection can lead to confusion with the significantly smaller Abdim stork ( Ciconia abdimii ). The black stork, like all real storks, flies with an outstretched neck and legs, which clearly protrude above the end of the tail, the head and beak are slightly lowered. The wings are a little narrower than those of the white stork, more clearly angled in the wing bend ( carpal joint ), but just as deeply fingered.
The flight of the black stork appears easier and agile than that of the white stork. In adaptation to his habitat , he has developed a flight technique in which the wings in the carpal joint are strongly angled, which significantly reduces the large wingspan of up to two meters. This type of flight enables easier entry into the crown area and better maneuvering in the forest . During courtship and territorial synchronized flights, black storks often spread their bright white under- tail feathers , a behavior that is known in technical jargon as flagging or flagging .
Black stork in flight over the Lower Oder Valley
Soaring black stork
Common train of black storks with white storks
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measurements and weight
The total length of the black stork averages just under 100 centimeters, making it around ten percent smaller than an average-sized white stork. An adult bird weighs almost three kilograms, a first-time bird about two and a half. This means that black storks are on average 10 to 20 percent lighter than white storks. With a wing length of up to 57.5 centimeters, the total span can reach almost two meters. The beak of an adult bird is with a beak height of about three centimeters up to 19.5 centimeters long.
voice
In contrast to the white stork, the black stork is gifted with voices. Although his beak rattles also occur as an instrumental sound , he also has a wide repertoire of loud and soft calls and chants.
During courtship, especially when flying synchronized and when approaching the nest, a not very loud, melodic-fluting flute , which is varied and modulated in various ways , can be heard. It can walk around to the Flugruf of Honey Buzzard remember. In aggression situations, this singing element becomes louder, sharper, and sometimes hissing sharply. In addition, black storks have a wide range of different contact sounds and contact calls. The clatter of bills is either a clatter of stress or excitement. It precedes copulation and can also be heard in aggressive situations.
The young birds beg extensively with different, sometimes somewhat duck-like sounds. In threatening situations, older young storks emit a deep, uuuaaa vocalized sound, known among ornithologists as roaring .
habitat
Unlike its better-known relative, the white stork, the black stork lives mostly hidden in old, but not too dense, richly structured forests; Deciduous forests and mixed deciduous forests with clearings , rivers , ponds and ponds are its ideal habitat. Moist, extensively used meadows close to the forest are also part of an optimal black stork habitat. Old black stork territories are almost always in closed forest areas , mostly over 100 hectares in size. With the denser population and the resulting lack of optimal breeding sites, breeding settlements have also been found in small forest areas, in individual cases even in small field trees.
Black storks are very sensitive to disturbances and therefore largely avoid the vicinity of human settlements. The assertion made on various occasions that the black stork breeds in Transcaucasia also in the area of human settlements has not been confirmed by recent studies. In 2013 in Steppach in Upper Franconia , however, a nest was built and brood (two young birds) on a roof in the center of the village.
distribution
In Northern and Central Europe, the black stork occurs more regularly, but still very sparsely, approximately east of 11 ° to 13 ° east longitude. The breeding occurrences to the west of it, with the exception of the largely resident Iberian populations, are spreading areas that have only been settled for a few years. A wedge that is well advanced currently extends from the forest areas of the Belgian and Luxembourg Ardennes across north-eastern and central France south-west to the Perigord . In the north, the species breeds from Northern Germany (irregularly and in very small numbers also in Denmark ) to the east via Poland and the Baltic states to Ussuria on the Pacific coast. The northern limit of its Palearctic distribution fluctuates around 60 ° N, the southern limit is inconsistent, since the species does not inhabit desert and steppe areas permanently.
In its entire Asian distribution area, the black stork is a very rare breeding bird with only extremely patchy distribution.
Largely isolated occurrences exist in Spain and eastern Portugal , in northern Turkey , in the Caucasus region , in northwestern Afghanistan and Pakistan , on the Korean peninsula and in the Republic of South Africa northwards to Zimbabwe and Zambia . It is not known where these resident South African stocks come from; currently they are not related to the European and Asian populations.
The vertical distribution of the occurrences is very different and ranges in Europe from the lowland areas to the submontane level of mixed deciduous forests , in Central Asia only forests of the submontane and montane level are populated.
food
The food of the black stork is made up to a much greater extent than that of the white stork from animals that live in or near the water. Play fish and lampreys the biggest role. In addition, depending on what is available, amphibians and invertebrates are also captured; the proportion of mammals is low compared to the white stork.
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Among the fish, trout are apparently the main prey, followed by bullheads , eels and, during the first two weeks of feeding, minnows and brook loaches . Wherever brook lamprey and river lamprey occur in black stork habitats, these round-mouthed animals are also among the prey animals of the species. There are hardly any details about captured amphibians; however, it seems to be mainly frogs and newts , while toads are only accepted when there is a severe food shortage. Reptiles, especially young grass snakes , have rarely been identified as prey.
Among the invertebrates, water-bound, but at least moisture-loving species also predominate, such as various swimming beetles , water beetles and their larval stages , and to a not inconsiderable extent the larvae of various caddis flies and dragonflies .
It is not known exactly what proportion of the diet mammals, in particular real mice , rats , voles and shrews , have. Due to the largely complete digestion of fish and amphibian food, however, their remains are probably overrepresented in the spitting balls. Nestlings of other birds or carrion are only rarely eaten (e.g. if there is a lack of other food) .
The black stork also regularly eats plants and feeds them to the young. Mainly these are mosses and aquatic plants. Various authors attribute this vegetarian complementary food to a function in the formation of bulges and also suspect that it supplies the stork with certain trace elements , especially manganese .
Food acquisition
The food is mostly captured walking in the water, in damp forest areas or on damp meadows. Short, quick pursuits with the help of the wings occur. Black storks mostly hunt in shallow water, but storks have also been observed wading in the water to their belly plumage. The black stork hunts both visually and sensory by probing movements of the beak in the mud or murky water, although its preferred feeding habitat are clear streams with a gravelly underground. The wings are often spread out during waterhunting - a method known as wing mantles or canopy feeding . The light reflections on the water may be softened as a result, but it could also be that the pursued fish are fooled into an escape cave by the light shielding and are thus easier to catch.
The prey is not impaled, but taken with the beak. Larger prey are kneaded soft in the beak before they are devoured head first. In order to turn the prey animals, they are sometimes thrown into the air, but sometimes also deposited at the edge of the water and only consumed there.
behavior
General
In its entire range, the black stork is a shy refuge from culture , some of which reacts extremely sensitively to disturbances in its breeding area. This susceptibility to disturbance is particularly pronounced in the first few weeks after arriving in the breeding area.
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Its activity begins with the first flight of food at dawn and ends shortly after sunset. During the breeding season it is strictly territorial and also outside of it less sociable than the white stork. On the train, however, there are larger groups together who visit resting and resting places as well as the feeding grounds together.
Rest and comfort behavior
Black storks carry out very meticulous care of their plumage and like to bathe extensively (" comfort behavior "). They dive into the water with their entire bodies. Social plumage care is regularly observed in adult and young birds. During the rest and sleep periods, the storks stick their beak into the fluffed neck and chest plumage; they often stand on one leg during these rest periods. During the mating period , the female sleeps in the nest, the male looks for a place to sleep in the immediate vicinity, usually with good visual contact to the nest. When the young no longer need to be fowled, an adult bird sleeps standing on the edge of the nest.
Aggressive behavior
During the courtship and breeding season, the black stork is strictly territorial. During the establishment of the territory, the territory is marked by impressive territory flights, intruders are kept away from it. Conspecifics are driven from the nest with strange dances. In doing so, the bird rests its white under-tail-coverts, steps from one leg to the other, and makes winding movements with its head. Often this dance is accompanied by groaning calls. However, attacks with body contact usually do not occur; they have rarely been observed among conspecifics, but can be quite violent and cause injuries. Such disputes are also carried out on the fly.
Breeding biology
As the latest observations show, black storks do not always lead a completely monogamous breeding season. They become sexually mature in their third year of life at the earliest , but usually do not brood until a year later . Due to the very high loyalty to the breeding site of both partners, re-breeding often occurs, even over many years. The bird that arrives first in the breeding area - it is more often the male - waits on the nest or near it for the partner; Sometimes, but not always, he immediately begins repair work on the nest or, in the case of establishing a territory, with building the nest. This waiting period can be up to 40 days in extreme cases, but one or two weeks are the rule. Only rarely do both birds arrive at the nesting site on the same day. The united couple begins immediately with nest building or nest repair and marks the territory with impressive sightseeing flights; the birds soaring to great heights always show synchronous flight movements, even during the simulated spiral crashes, the so-called wiggling . Often the white under-tail cover feathers are spread during these territorial flights.
During this time, the storks copulate frequently, mainly in the morning hours and mostly on the main nest.
Nest location and nest
Black storks build extensive tree or rock nests. The tree nests are in the middle, but more often in the upper third of various deciduous and coniferous trees, mostly close to the trunk, but occasionally also far away from the trunk on wide, strong branches. A preference for oak can be seen among the eyrie trees , probably mainly because oaks already develop strong branches with many branches in the middle section of the trunk, which are well suited as a stable nest support. In low mountain regions of Germany, the red beech has the greatest importance as an eyrie. In rather damp forests, clumps are often found on alder, ash or birch trees. In some areas, pines, spruces or firs also dominate as a horst tree. In tree nests, the nests often lie on overhangs, i.e. trees that tower above others in height, often also on trees at the edge of clearings. Such layers make it easy to fly into the eyrie area. Rock nests are usually built on relatively low, often partially or completely covered ledges, whereby the height of the rock itself and the height of the nest within the rock can be very different.
The black stork often uses its nests for many years, repairs them again and again and expands them so that they can reach considerable dimensions and weight, which often leads to nest collapses if the nest base is too weak. The clumps are seldom circular, but rather round-oval with dimensions of around 150 × 120 centimeters and a height of around 50 centimeters. However, these dimensions can be exceeded considerably. Often a district couple creates a few alternative nests next to the main nest.
Clutch and brood
The time at which the eggs are laid depends on the geographical location and climatic conditions. In Central Europe it rarely begins before mid-April. The western storks tend to start breeding earlier, the eastern storks later. The South African breeding season falls in the local winter and reaches its peak in June and July.
A full clutch most often consists of four oval, initially greenish, later pure white eggs with an average size of 66 × 48.5 millimeters. There are also clutches with three to seven eggs. Additional eggs rarely contain more than three eggs.
The eggs are laid every two days; the female usually begins to incubate firmly after the second egg, so that the chicks hatch at intervals of up to six days and there can be considerable differences in size and development between the chicks. Both parents breed, but always the female at night. Occasionally the female will be provided with food by the male during the breeding season . The mean breeding season is 34 to 38 days. In the first three to four weeks, the young storks are constantly guarded by an old stork and, if necessary, huddled or shaded. At first the males only feed, after the second week of life, sometimes later, both parents feed. At 21 days the young can stand upright at least for a short time, at around 60 to 70 days they are fully fledged. The young storks are looked after by their parents for another two to four weeks and often return to the nest. After that, they usually leave the nursery area in the direction of migration and in front of the adult birds.
hikes
The black stork is an obligatory long-distance migrant in most of its large distribution area , only parts of the populations in western Spain and eastern Portugal and the South African black storks are resident birds. Like the white stork, the black stork is primarily a thermal migrant , but it crosses the Mediterranean in larger numbers than this because it can cover longer distances in flapping flight. The Sahara is mostly flown around on coastal routes, or only grazed in its peripheral areas. However, a not inconsiderable number of storks also choose oasis routes and cross the central Sahara.
West puller
Among those who migrated to the west, around 10 percent choose the passage Sicily - Cap Bon , Tunisia , while the island bridge of the Aegean Sea is rarely flown over. As a rule, however, the west pullers fly over the Mediterranean in the vicinity of Gibraltar. With the progressive western expansion of the species, the number of western migrants also increases, some of which already overwinter in southern Spain and southern Portugal, but mostly migrate to West Africa, especially to the Niger wetlands and Senegambia .
Ostzieher
The east migrants choose the Bosporus - Sinai - Nile Valley route and spend the winter in East Africa. The wintering areas of the storks that breed in Central Asia are also partly in East Africa and in India south of the Himalayas, but mostly north of the equator, while those of the Far East storks are in Indochina and southern China. The Asian high mountains are often overflown; Migrating storks have been observed in the Karakoram at heights of 8000 meters.
Zugscheide in Europe
The inconsistent dividing line between East and West migrants is around 16 ° East in eastern Central Europe and extends north to around 10 ° East. The migration divisions of the Asian populations are not known. The South African storks nomadize outside of the breeding season.
Train times in Europe
The departure of the storks from their breeding areas begins in mid-August with the departure of the young storks and lasts until the end of September. Within the Zugscheiden areas it happens that both partners and siblings choose different routes. The train performance when leaving is between 100 and 250 daily kilometers with maximum daily distances of over 500 kilometers. The return home is a little faster; the first Central European storks return to the breeding area from mid-March.
Duration
The European black stork population has been increasing slightly, especially in western Central Europe, for about 25 years. In the east, on the other hand, there are inconsistent population developments, and in some states there are also significant population decreases. What is striking is the comparatively low reproduction rate of the eastern storks, while that of the western storks remains consistently high. No current information is available about the population situation in Central and East Asia, but individual figures tend to indicate a decline in the population.
In Europe there is a trend towards an area expansion to the west and north-west, which has increased significantly, especially after 1995. Single broods in southern Baden-Württemberg and in the Bavarian Allgäu point to an incipient area expansion in these areas. Some breeding season observations from the border area with Bavaria as well as individual observations of migrating black storks are available from Vorarlberg , but breeding evidence is still pending. The situation is similar in Eastern Switzerland. Down the Rhine, the species already breeds in not inconsiderable numbers in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia . In 2005 at least 500 to 530 pairs were breeding in Germany, while the number of breeding pairs in the early 1970s was still below 50. Broods have recently been reported again from northern Italy. The expansion of the area across the Belgian Ardennes to north-east France is particularly stormy, without the regions behind it already being filled.
Overall, the European populations are estimated at around 7,000 to 11,000 breeding pairs, which corresponds to about half of the world population. The largest occurrences with over 1000 breeding pairs each are in Poland and Belarus.
threat
The IUCN currently sees the black stork population not endangered ( LC = least concern ), in the European lists the species is classified as R (= rare) despite the positive population trend . Due to the globally very low number of individuals of a maximum of around 40,000 animals, it appears to be particularly endangered by a lack of genetic exchange as well as by migration losses (especially shooting in some southern European and north African countries) and by problems in the wintering areas. Young storks, in particular, very often have accidents on their first move on high-voltage lines and wind power plants . In the breeding areas, negative habitat changes and disturbances at the breeding site are still the most serious causes of danger.
Wind turbines (WTs) are a relatively new threat . Up to 2015, five collision victims and a high number of critical flight situations at wind turbines were documented for Germany. In 2015, the state working group of bird protection centers published a minimum recommended distance of 3,000 m from wind turbines to breeding sites for the black stork and a test area of 10,000 meters around breeding sites in order to rule out risks when flights to food grounds. In recent years, broods of the black stork have been disturbed several times and its clumps have been sawed off after the breeding season, where wind turbines were planned in the vicinity. At Bad Fredeburg , a forest owner felled a pair of black storks' eyrie trees at the beginning of 2016, presumably because a wind power priority zone was planned above the eyrie tree and a black stork breeding site meant the end of the planning. The informed Lower Nature Conservation Authority (UNB) initiated an administrative offense procedure and imposed a fine . The objection to the decision before the Arnsberg District Court was rejected. The judge clearly affirmed the negligence of the landowner and imposed a fine of 500 euros.
Bastardizations
No hybridization has been observed in the wild between black and white storks. In the zoos of Basel , Cologne and Tallinn , however, such crossings did occur. The hybrids developed different plumage colors in the meantime; nothing is known about their fertility .
Name derivation
The deeper etymology of the German name Stork ( proto-Germanic * Sturka , Old High German storah , Middle High German storks ) is not clear, possible links to non-Germanic languages are thus not clearly established. The genus name ciconia is documented in Pliny and names different birds of prey . The Latin color adjective nigra means black .
Cultural history
In pre-Christian-Germanic times the black stork was seen as one of Odin's companions ; a popular name still in use in Swedish is Odensvala, Swallow of Odin . From the Middle Ages there is little evidence of an exact knowledge of the species, but it is shown in the falcon book of Emperor Frederick II (De arte venandi cum avibus) in some very realistic illustrations. In general, from the Middle Ages to modern times, the black stork is considered an opponent of the revered and positive white stork and is accordingly seen as a herald of calamity, disease and war. This popular superstition that the black stork promises impending disaster is still alive in some regions of southeastern Europe.
literature
- Gerd Janssen, Martin Hormann, Carsten Rohde: The black stork - Ciconia nigra . The New Brehm Library . Bd. 468. Westarp-Wissenschaften, Hohenwarsleben 2004. ISBN 3-89432-219-5 .
- Peter Schröder, Gerd Burmeister: The black stork. Ciconia nigra. Ziemsen, Wittenberg 1974, Westarp-Wissenschaften, Hohenwarsleben 2004, ISBN 3-89432-219-5 .
- Hans-Günther Bauer, Peter Berthold : The breeding birds of Central Europe. Existence and endangerment. Aula, Wiesbaden 1997, ISBN 3-89104-613-8 , p. 45 f.
- Urs N. Glutz von Blotzheim (Hrsg.): Handbook of the birds of Central Europe. Volume 1: Gaviiformes - Phoenicopteriformes . Aula, Wiesbaden 1987, 2nd edition, ISBN 3-89104-457-7 , pp. 415-427.
- Bengt-Thomas Groebel, Martin Hormann: Mysterious black stork. Fascinating insights into the life of a shy forest bird. Aula, Wiebelsheim 2015. ISBN 978-3-89104-786-6
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gerd Janssen, Martin Hormann, Carsten Rohde: The black stork - Ciconia nigra. The New Brehm Library. Vol. 468.Westarp-Wissenschaften, Hohenwarsleben 2004, p. 127 ff
- ↑ Sudfeldt, C., R. Dröschmeister, M. Flade, C. Green Mountain, A. Mitschke, J. Black & J. Wahl (2009): Birds in Germany - 2009. DDA, BfN, LAG VSW, Münster
- ↑ Gerd Janssen, Martin Hormann, Carsten Rohde: The black stork - Ciconia nigra. The New Brehm Library. Vol. 468.Westarp-Wissenschaften, Hohenwarsleben 2004, p. 353 ff
- ↑ State Working Group of Bird Conservation Centers (LAG VSW): Distance recommendations for wind turbines to significant bird habitats and breeding grounds for selected bird species (as of April 2015)
- ↑ Martin Lindner: Constant dripping wears away the stone - Submissions to the UNB. Irrgeister 36, 2019: 34-38
- ↑ Gerd Janssen, Martin Hormann, Carsten Rohde: The black stork - Ciconia nigra. The New Brehm Library. Vol. 468. Westarp-Wissenschaften, Hohenwarsleben 2004. S. 16 ff
Web links
- Ciconia nigra in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2008. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2008. Accessed January 31 of 2009.
- Videos, photos and sound recordings of Ciconia nigra in the Internet Bird Collection
- BirdLife International: Ciconia nigra (English, PDF, 225 kB)
- State Office for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection North Rhine-Westphalia LANUV NRW 2010
- an illustrated report about the 2013 breeding season of black storks in the Harz Mountains
- Podcast The Black Stork in Bavaria on www.forstcast.net
- Webcam in Estonia Black stork nest camera as of May 5, 2017
- Black stork feathers
