The Hindu : International : Storks back after 600 years

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 23, 2004

International

International

Storks back after 600 years

Storks back

after 600 years

Leeds: Cartwheels are being dusted down by bird enthusiasts after the discovery that two white storks are trying to nest in Britain for the first time in nearly 600 years. Word has shot round the birdwatching community about sightings of the migrants mating and gathering sticks between housing estates and a motorway in the northern English county of Yorkshire. An informal guard has been placed on a tree and telegraph pole, chosen by the birds for the first-known British nesting attempt since 1416. In that year, only months after Henry V's defeat of the French at the battle of Agincourt, storks successfully fledged chicks on St. Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh. Familiar in eastern Europe, where cartwheels are fixed to telegraph poles and chimneys to encourage nests, storks are rare visitors to Britain. Usually blown off course, both the white and black varieties seldom notch up more than a handful of sightings every decade. Most sightings are escapees from wildlife parks but the Yorkshire pair, which have settled in the Calder valley near Wakefield, have rings which indicate that they come from Europe.

Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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