page_title: White stork
section_title: Routes
hierarchical_section_title: White stork / Distribution and habitat / Migration / Routes
caption_attribution_description: English: Hundreds of migratory storks resting in Rahat (Negev, Israel).
context_page_description: The white stork is a large bird in the stork family, Ciconiidae. Its plumage is mainly white, with black on the bird's wings. Adults have long red legs and long pointed red beaks, and measure on average 100–115 cm from beak tip to end of tail, with a 155–215 cm wingspan. The two subspecies, which differ slightly in size, breed in Europe, northwestern Africa, southwestern Asia and southern Africa. The white stork is a long-distance migrant, wintering in Africa from tropical Sub-Saharan Africa to as far south as South Africa, or on the Indian subcontinent. When migrating between Europe and Africa, it avoids crossing the Mediterranean Sea and detours via the Levant in the east or the Strait of Gibraltar in the west, because the air thermals on which it depends for soaring do not form over water.
  A carnivore, the white stork eats a wide range of animal prey, including insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, small mammals and small birds. It takes most of its food from the ground, among low vegetation, and from shallow water. It is a monogamous breeder, but does not pair for life. Both members of the pair build a large stick nest, which may be used for several years.
context_section_description: White storks fly south from their summer breeding grounds in Europe in August and September, heading for Africa. There, they spend the winter in savannah from Kenya and Uganda south to the Cape Province of South Africa. In these areas they congregate in large flocks which may exceed a thousand individuals. Some diverge westwards into western Sudan and Chad, and may reach Nigeria. In spring, the birds return north; they are recorded from Sudan and Egypt from February to April. They arrive back in Europe around late March and April, after an average journey of 49 days. By comparison, the autumn journey is completed in about 26 days. Tailwinds and scarcity of food and water en route (birds fly faster over regions lacking resources) increase average speed.
  To avoid a long sea crossing over the Mediterranean, birds from central Europe either follow an eastern migration route by crossing the Bosphorus to Turkey, traversing the Levant, then bypassing the Sahara Desert by following the Nile valley southwards, or follow a western route over the Strait of Gibraltar. These migration corridors maximise help from the thermals and thus save energy. The eastern route is by far the more important with 530,000 white storks using it annually, making the species the second commonest migrant there (after the European honey buzzard). The flocks of migrating raptors, white storks and great white pelicans can stretch for 200 km (125 mi). The eastern route is twice as long as the western, but storks take the same time to reach the wintering grounds by either.
  Juvenile white storks set off on their first southward migration in an inherited direction but, if displaced from that bearing by weather conditions, they are unable to compensate, and may end up in a new wintering location. Adults can compensate for strong winds and adjust their direction to finish at their normal winter sites, because they are familiar with the location. For the same reason, all spring migrants, even those from displaced wintering locations, can find their way back to the traditional breeding sites. An experiment with young birds raised in captivity in Kaliningrad and released in the absence of wild storks to show them the way revealed that they appeared to have an instinct to fly south, although the scatter in direction was large.
caption: Eastern route: storks resting in Rahat (spring 2017).
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