2024 Stork Webcam

mickysf
mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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Watch this season’s nest action as it happens right now.

Let’s hope for another bumper year with lots more fledgling birds taking to our skies.👍

https://www.youtube.com/live/s0liN8AzykQ?si=Sa5RECGCWWF6eLpH

Comments

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited March 15 #2

    Do I see three eggs this morning?

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited March 15 #3

    Sorry, duplicated post but it might be two or three!

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited March 19 #4

    Good news, it looks like there are now four eggs in the webcam nest. 
    Storks have always been a fascination for me since childhood. As a very young child I saw one circling high over the skies of Cornwall. I was then told that I was lucky to see one and that although several birds visited the UK every year they had not bred for centuries due to persecution. Those stork visitations have continued throughout my lifetime but now, with help, they breed once more on our shores. 
    I feel I must know go and see them once more with my own eyes in the feather.


    https://www.cameronbespolka.com/young-birders-blog/white-stork-their-heritage-in-the-uk-and-potential-future#:~:text=The%20white%20stork%20(Ciconia%20ciconia,spotted%20annually%20across%20the%20UK.

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited April 1 #5
  • nelliethehooker
    nelliethehooker Club Member Posts: 13,636
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    edited April 1 #6

    Good article micky, thanks.

  • Wherenext
    Wherenext Club Member Posts: 10,585 ✭✭✭
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    edited April 4 #7

    I've looked at the webcam for ages today and haven't seen a single baby.yelllaughing Just birds! 

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited April 13 #8

    Well look today WN, the first baby arrived/hatched this morning. 😀 Baby/chick and parents doing well, that plastic bag on the nest could be a bit of an issue mind! 

    https://www.youtube.com/live/s0liN8AzykQ?si=Sa5RECGCWWF6eLpH

  • RedKite
    RedKite Club Member Posts: 1,716 ✭✭
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    edited April 13 #9

     Just had a look and could not see the chick will look again later.

    Had a email from LPO and a webcam on a stork's nest in the Charente and 1 adult sitting on the nest and must be very warm  as she is trying to cool down as very warm here today.

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited April 14 #10

    Three chicks on view this morning!👍

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited April 16 #11

    Thankfully they have survived the windy weather and hopefully the last egg has now hatched or is hatching. The adult, can’t tell if it’s the male or female, has hunkered down tight this morning. Here’s a snap from the webcam yesterday and one just now.

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited April 25 #12

    They are growing quickly, some fabulous interaction between the adults and chicks observed on the live webcam.

  • RedKite
    RedKite Club Member Posts: 1,716 ✭✭
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    edited April 25 #13

     Gosh they are growing and all four of them great to see.

  • Wherenext
    Wherenext Club Member Posts: 10,585 ✭✭✭
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    edited May 1 #14

    3 Storks seen flying around the Dee Estuary in Wirral today. We were at Burton reserve this morning but apparently they'd already flown up the coast and returned in the afternoon so we missed seeing them.

    As there is already an established nesting and roosting site at the reserve for Herons, Little and Great White Egrets there is hope that they may settle and breed.

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited May 8 #15

    The chicks really are growing up fast, just getting that black and white appearances as their feathers emerge. All four doing well.
    There have been an increasing number birds sighted around and about the UK this Spring.  Here

  • RedKite
    RedKite Club Member Posts: 1,716 ✭✭
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    edited May 8 #16

    Thanks mickysf and their beaks are getting bigger amazing. 

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited May 15 #17

    Just checked in on the nest cam. Wow, one week on and all four chicks doing fine. Nearly as big as the adults. 👍

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited June 3 #18

    Some very encouraging breeding news here. What a fabulous sight it must be to witness these birds riding the thermals across our skies. 
    https://fb.watch/stuMoLUmxN/

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited June 9 #19

    Taking a look at the chicks today and they are as big as the adults (not in frame). Can’t be long until they fledge. 👍

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited June 20 #20

    Those kids just seem so reluctant to spread their wings and feel the air beneath. Surely today is the day!

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited June 21 #21

    Surprisingly they are still there, parents have reduced feeding them at the nest but still bringing liquid in. This must be to encourage the chicks to make that leap of faith. 

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited June 26 #22

    Almost a week has gone by and the chicks are still there! A few touch and go ‘flights’ and a couple of circuit and bumps around the close vicinity by a couple of would be fledglings but reluctance to fly the nest seems to remain. Fascinating to watch the antics of both chicks and adults at this time. When will they go, heaven knows!

    https://www.youtube.com/live/s0liN8AzykQ?si=Sa5RECGCWWF6eLpH

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited June 30 #23

    6:30 am this morning and the nest is now completely empty. The storklets may visit the nest again during the day and roost there for the coming weeks though before that urge to migrate kicks in. Good season’s outcome for these parents, let’s hope the rest of the UK nesting storks have been similarly successful.👍

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 6 #24

    The chicks are taking more and more flights away from the nest now but still returning occasionally during the day and to roost. Hilarious but dangerous landing this morning which saw one chick miss the edge of the nest and take an ungainly tumble through the branches below, it could have been a very different outcome. Thankfully all was well. The clip of this event can be viewed on the webcam. One very lucky storklet.

  • RedKite
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    edited July 9 #25

    The BBC South Today yesterday had a short clip from there and shown what they had done to get the Storks there to breed surprised to see one nest on the ground  with one chick in it and others up in the trees, a interesting article and hope they get more to nest and possibly in other areas as well.

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited August 2 #26

    Brilliant news.

    1. A record 53 young White Storks have fledged in the UK this year, the most successful breeding season to date in ‘recent times’. A reintroduction project now well on the way to success it is hoped.
  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited September 22 #27

    The official 2024 overview of this reintroduction project is now out and it’s been fabulously successful. 
    Here

    The hope now is that storks will set up several of their own colonies away from the project’s base. The prospect of this happening is looking possible for 2025 so fingers crossed.

  • RedKite
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    edited September 27 #28

    Good news.

    We are staying at a Gite and the tv has Netflix so found an interesting prog to watch about wildlife on the River Tagus border between Spain and Portugal and they had Storks nesting and feeding 3 young and surprised to see the parent opening its beak and dropping a huge amount of black beetles on the nest for the young to feed on and gosh they got through a huge amount very quickly.

    You learn something new all the time with wildlife.

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited November 9 #29

    Here is the 2024 supplementary round up article and the back story to Snappy who was raised by his previously injured and now flightless parents. He has subsequently migrated to Morocco and the hope is he will return when he is a young adult ready to breed. 👍
    Here