White Storks

Ringing results from the past

The earliest record of the recovery of a ringed bird in southern Africa was of a White Stork ringed in Hungary and recovered in Himeville, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, in January 1909. Given that bird ringing, using the system of numbered rings with return addresses, had only been invented 10 years earlier, this was a remarkably early date. In fact, there are three recoveries of White Storks ringed prior to 1910.

During the 20th century, 720 White Storks, mostly ringed as nestlings in Europe and the Middle East, were recovered in southern Africa. Most of these birds originated in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Hungary, Poland, former Yugoslavia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Russia and Israel. Unexpectedly, there are also three recoveries of nestlings ringed in Spain; these birds should migrate into Africa across the Straits of Gibraltar and spend the northern winter in the Sahel region of west Africa, between Senegal and Chad. Perhaps their occurrence so far south is related to droughts in the Sahel. The longest reliable elapsed time between ringing as a nestling and recovery of the ring off a freshly dead bird was 22 years and 10 months. One report of a ring was made 37 years after the bird was ringed; but the ring was found in an old ruined farmhouse near Howick in KwaZulu-Natal, and the bird may have died many years earlier.

Of the White Stork nestlings ringed since 1961 in the Western Cape, two have been recovered. With beginner's luck, both these recoveries were from two of the three chicks in the first nest to be discovered the Bredasdorp region, near Cape Agulhas at the southern tip of Africa, in November 1961. These birds were ringed on 3 December 1961. One was recovered 3 months and 21 days later, on 25 March 1962, close to the border between Zambia and Tanzania, 3116 km northeast of the ringing site. This date falls during the peak migration period. On this date, this bird might have been migrating northwards with adult birds returning to their European breeding grounds. The second recovery was made 3 years and 11 months after ringing, on 14 November 1965, near the town of Vrede in the Free State, South Africa, a distance of 1181 km from the ringing site. At an age of almost exactly four years, this bird could have been part of the breeding population. We know absolutely nothing of this bird's movements over the nearly four years from ringing to recovery. It may, or may not, have migrated to Europe. It may even have bred there.

These two recoveries demonstrate that the movements of the offspring of the White Storks that breed in the Western Cape are interesting. They certainly justify the placing of satellite tags on a few birds to enable us find out exactly what they do.

For further information, consult the following two reviews of White Storks ringing recoveries.

• Oatley, T.B. & Rammesmeyer, M.A.M. 1998. Review of recoveries of ringed White Storks Ciconia ciconia in southern Africa. Ostrich 59: 97-104.
• Underhill, L.G., Tree, A.J., Oschadleus, H.D. & Parker, V. 1999. Review of ring recoveries of waterbirds in southern Africa. Cape Town: Avian Demography Unit, University of Cape Town.