Spaniards' beloved storks stop migrating

By Sinikka Tarvainen May 2, 2007, 14:14 GMT

Madrid - White storks are an inseparable part of the human landscape in Spain, where locals and tourists love seeing their picturesque nests on centuries-old church towers, red-tiled roofs in quaint villages, chimneys or lamp posts even in big cities.

The storks' return from Africa was earlier an unmistakable sign of spring, but these days, the large birds can be seen standing on one leg or flying above all year round.

The fact that many storks have stopped migrating is attributed mainly to an increase of nourishment for them at garbage dumps, but it could also be a sign of global warming, stork expert Blas Molina of the Spanish Ornithological Society (SEO) says.

Spain is one of the European countries with the most white storks, which numbered 33,000 couples at the time of the most recent count in 2004.

Statistics make it look like half of Spain's white storks no longer migrate, but that figure is likely to be exaggerated, because the number of storks spending the winter in Spain includes individuals which migrate to the country from further up north, Molina told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The white stork is a protected species in Spain, and that is more than just a typical environmental measure.

Spaniards had a special relationship with their storks already in rural societies, where farmers appreciated them as killers of mice and other pests, Molina explains.

Today, storks are increasingly moving into urban areas, where their huge nests top telephone poles, antennas, electricity pylons, cranes and even abandoned cars. The Madrid region alone has hundreds of stork couples.

Storks love to nest on historic monuments with towers and multiple roofs, and ancient buildings such as churches can have as many as 500 storks living on them.

Some municipalities, like Alcala de Henares, the birth place of Don Quixote author Miguel de Cervantes near Madrid, market the storks as a special attraction along their sightseeing routes.

Spanish city residents enjoy hearing storks make their strange bill-clapping sound and 'dance' with open wings during mating ceremonies.

Storks are drawn to areas of human habitation by garbage dumps where they feed for instance on chicken or fish rests.

Dumps have become kinds of fast-food restaurants for different species of urban birds, hundreds of thousands of which regularly visit places such as Madrid's huge Valdemingomez waste disposal site.

Global warming may also be providing storks with more nourishment, making insects and invertebrates available during the cold season, according to experts.

The availability of food spares the birds a dangerous journey of thousands of kilometres to African countries such as Nigeria or Mali.

Yet while urban life has its attractions for storks and other birds, it is also fraught with danger.

Birds eat rubber bands which they mistake for worms, catch diseases from rotten food, injure themselves with glass shards or with rope which they use in building nests, and get electrocuted by cables.

Spaniards do their best to protect their beloved storks, taking measures such as placing 'traffic signs' on electric cables.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Spain's white stork population went into decline because of droughts, pesticides and the rural exodus, but reintroduction programmes helped it to recover in the 1990s.

Local authorities and environmentalists also take measures such as establishing artificial nests, platforms or posts for nests, and provide storks with sticks and other building materials.

Environmentalists climb to high places to remove branches from nests, which can weigh more than 500 kilos and measure over 2 metres in diameter, to prevent them from growing too heavy and falling down.

Priests have been known to use money collected during mass to protect storks living on church roofs.

'Spaniards have a kind of tenderness for their storks,' Molina concludes.