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Rare and impressive: 7300+ White Storks in Cyprus

September 14, 2020
Categories
  • Cyprus
  • White Stork
Tags
Cyprus

By BirdLife Cyprus

The White Stork Ciconia ciconia is one of the most well-known migratory bird species in the world, traveling in spectacular flocks numbering thousands. With their huge wings, they soar upon rising warm air currents to altitudes of 1500 m and then simply glide over huge distances. Since these warm currents do not form over water, storks traveling between Europe and Africa usually avoid the Mediterranean Sea, diverting via the Bosporus in the east or the Strait of Gibraltar in the west.

This is the reason why, usually, only a small number of White Storks pass through our island during migration.

This year was the unexpected exception, however, as from mid to late August, flocks of hundreds and even thousands of White Storks were recorded throughout Cyprus – from Famagusta to Paphos districts – as they used the island as a stopover during their journey to Africa. Such large flocks of White Storks are rare for Cyprus and are usually observed every 10-15 years, mainly in August. This behavior is probably related to the prevailing weather conditions along the birds’ migration routes, which force them to change course in an effort to avoid bad weather.

Some flocks were observed stopping over for only a few hours, while others appeared to remain in specific locations for up to a week. Based on sightings we received from seasoned birdwatchers, it is estimated that more than 7300 White Storks visited Cyprus during the last two weeks of August.

Migrating flocks, weak and exhausted by their epic journey, are particularly vulnerable to collision with overhead power lines and the threat of illegal shooting along their migration routes. And so, for some White Storks the journey unfortunately ended unexpectedly in Cyprus, as twelve birds were found dead in the area of ​​Potamia in Nicosia district. According to the Game and Fauna Service, the birds died of electrocution after contact with overhead power lines found in the area.

Storks are opportunists, taking whatever kind of food happens to be more easily accessible, so they are often seen feeding from rubbish dumps. © Dave Walker, BirdLife Cyprus, August 2020

Overhead power lines are a major factor of non-natural mortality for birds throughout the world. As part of the “LIFE with the Vultures” project, power lines that pose the highest collision risk for Griffon Vultures will be marked with bird diverters in order to reduce the risk of collision. Although this action is mainly aimed at protecting the Griffon Vulture, the marking of overhead power lines that pose the highest risk of collision will most likely also benefit other species of large soaring birds, such as birds of prey, storks, etc.

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Stichting BirdLife Europe and BirdLife International gratefully acknowledge financial support from the MAVA Foundation, the EU LIFE programme, the European Commission and Vogelbescherming Nederland (BirdLife Netherlands).
All content and opinions expressed on these pages are solely those of Stichting BirdLife Europe.
"Flight for Survival" is partially funded by the LIFE Against Bird Crime project. More information is available here.

Over 25 000 000 million birds are illegally killed around the Mediterranean, Northern Europe and the Caucasus every year. For non-rounded, mean numbers, and minimum/maximum estimates, see: Preliminary assessment of the scope and scale of illegal killing and taking of birds in the Mediterranean (Brochet et al 2016) and Illegal killing and taking of Birds in Europe outside the Mediterranean: assessing the scope and scale of a complex issue (Brochet et al., 2018)

“Flight for Survival” is a BirdLife International campaign managed by Stichting BirdLife Europe to raise awareness about the illegal killing of birds in Italy, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Egypt, Lebanon, Bulgaria and Hungary, and their conservation activities to fight this.” The species storylines for this campaign are heavily inspired by the information available on the migration habits of the selected birds.

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