In general, June belongs to the chicks in our conditions. Both in the mammal kingdom and in birds. Especially migratory species hatch their young a little later than permanent ones (e.g. owls, titmouses, etc.). And so it is no wonder that June is also the month of ringing the young of the symbol of migrating birds – the white stork. On June 24, we carried out an inspection of white stork nests in the districts of Martin and Turčianske Teplice. The reason was to mark the chicks with specific rings, as well as to identify the condition of any dangerous nests and propose solutions. Last but not least, by physically inspecting the nests and chicks, we can also detect any entanglement of the chicks in various strings. Thankfully, we didn’t have to deal with the last aspect this year.
On 21 nests under the responsibility of Stredoslovenská distribučná, a.s. (hereinafter SSD), which is responsible for the operation of the lines. We recorded a total of 61 chicks (average 2.90 chicks per nesting pair), all of which we ringed. We found 1×0, 1×1, 5×2, 8×3, 5×4 and 1×6 chicks on the nests. We recorded an occupied nest without young in the center of Blažovce. We marked an exceptional six chicks on the nest in the village of Slovany.
In the coming period, we will be impatiently waiting to see if and where the information will come from, either from the migration of the white stork, or whether it will be data where the marked storks decided to stay or nest in a few years (the so-called philopatry). The currently used rings have the advantage that we can identify them even at a relatively long distance and we are not dependent only on the findings of marked dead individuals.
At this point, I would like to thank SSD very much for their helpfulness and organization of the ringing – especially Ing. Alena Skrisová and also the Administration of the Veľká Fatra National Park based in Martin in the form of Ing. Mária Apfelová, who coordinated the whole event and carried out preliminary monitoring of the occupied nests.
Roman Slobodnik
Protection of birds of prey in Slovakia
Raptor Protection of Slovakia (RPS)
Trhová 54, SK-841 01 Bratislava 42
https://www.dravce.sk
