There have probably never been so many storks in the valley as this year / Georg Bickel from Freiburg-Opfingen is the expert on the subject.
A woman from Waldkirch counted four storks on the roof in July. Eight and then often over ten sat on Elzach’s church tower for weeks. On the town hall even more: “13!” observed one, the next day “14!” and then even “18!” were named. Yes, in the Elztal, especially in the upper Elztal, there was a new pastime this summer: counting storks.
. In Haslach im Kinzigtal there is – a festival for children – an annual “Stork Day” in February. As a thank you that a long time ago the storks freed the town from a pest of vermin. In the Elztal this summer it was always stork day, because so many of the white and black birds have probably never been guests here. According to Elzach’s historical honorary citizen Josef Weber, 88 years old, he could not remember that a pair of storks brooded in Elzach when he was young. And in the period up to the turn of the millennium, not a single stork could be seen in the Elz- and Simonswäldertal for a long time.
Now he’s back – and how. Amazing, because everything is being built, drained, sealed, so less food for storks, one would think.
Gustav Bickel from Freiburg-Opfingen is someone who knows exactly. He has been taking care of storks in the region since 1990. He is a founding member and since 2009 chairman of the association Weißstorch Breisgau. It can be lifted onto houses and church towers with turntable ladders in order to ring storks, equip them with transmitters or otherwise supply them. “There were six breeding pairs and 15 young storks in the Elztal this year,” he said when asked by the BZ, in Elzach (wooden mast at the school), but above all in Gutach on the church and in Kollnau (KSW site and on two power poles).
The many storks that Bickel also photographed (in Elzach and Winden) “are all young storks from the Breisgau and only come to you in the Elz Valley because of the food supply,” he writes. And: “Since most of the 200 young storks in Breisgau are already fledged, they go looking for food together. They no longer spend the night in their brood nests,
but come together to prepare for the flight south; the young storks fly around 14 days earlier, in mid-August, before the old storks. “
And also: “In my old documents, which go back to 1900, there were no storks in the Elztal. The next nests were in Denzlingen, Gundelfingen and Mundingen, climate change makes it possible!”
Now, at the end of August, the long journey has long since begun. According to Bickel’s flight route, the feathered “winter vacationers” flew along the Rhone Valley and are now in central Spain. How does he know that exactly? “Two storks from the troop have a transmitter that shows where they are”. Then it goes on via Gibraltar to Morocco, some fly to Mali and Senegal, so Bickel. Only a minority, seven percent of the breeding storks, overwinter here. The Elz valleys wish the rest of them “a good flight, lots of Africa and goodbye in 2021!”
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