Storks return home as spring comes

SAMSUN

Storks, which migrate to relatively warmer regions in winter, have returned to their old home in Turkey with the arrival of the spring season.

The 20-acre forest area, located in the Kızılırmak Delta Bird Sanctuary in the Black Sea province of Samsun and currently hosting 900 stork nests, welcomed its first guests.

The storks have repaired their nests that they stopped for layover last year after they received damage.

It is expected that the nestling of the storks that have mated will hatch their eggs after about a month and live with their mothers for a while.

The storks will have their first flight experience after four weeks of care.

They will leave the delta on the UNESCO Temporary Heritage List as of Sept. 1 and migrate to South Africa.

There is also an observation tower in the delta for easy observation of storks, but due to the corona-virus epidemic that ravaged the world, birdwatching is not expected this year.

The area was closed to the vehicle entrance to protect 56,000 hectares of Kızılırmak Delta Bird Sanctuary, where 356 bird species live.

The delta, which has 5,174 hectares under Wildlife Protection Area and under the protection of the International Ramsar Convention, includes 20 large and small lakes and large marsh and reed areas.

The area, which has three of the four most important criteria in the European Bird Areas Inventory, had 15 of the 24 endangered bird species in the world.

Bird paradise

Meanwhile, Bursa’s Eskikaraağaç village, the only Turkish village that is a member of the European Stork Village Network, is home to hundreds of storks this year, where storks from the African continent stay every year during the migration season.

The authorities decided to take concrete steps to return Eskikarağaç, known as the Stork Village, to a “bird paradise.”

Stating that the works are continuing within the framework of the master plan prepared, Karacabey Mayor Ali Özkan said that they plan to turn the region into a center where many bird species, both storks and pelicans, will be hosted.

Meanwhile, storks have begun to come to the only remaining wall of the historical military hospital as every year in the northwestern province of Edirne.

The only remaining wall from the Edirne Military Hospital, which served many patients during the Balkan Wars, but began turning into ruins in 1985, is one of the areas where storks settle.

In addition to the nests on many pine trees and electricity poles in the region, the number of stork nests is increasing every year in the heirloom of the historical hospital.

Turkey ranks second in the stork population in the world, while Samsun ranks first and Bursa ranks second in Turkey.