The 24th of August is St. Bartholomew Day, or storks’ departure day from Lithuania.
In recent years, White Storks have been observed to leave their breeding grounds in Lithuania earlier – to date, only single White Storks can be seen standing in their nests or following tractors ploughing the fields. Most of the birds started their southward journey in mid-August or even earlier. This year, researchers of the Laboratory of Avian Ecology of Nature Research Centre are tracking 11 adult White Storks by telemetry transmitters. The first three storks were tracked to leave their breeding grounds on 9 August, i.e. before 24 August, the storks’ departure date, and soon were followed by most of the remaining birds. To date, only one bird tagged with a transmitter is still at its nest. The birds that were the earliest to start their autumnal migration have already reached the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt and will soon cross the Red Sea’s Gulf of Suez and enter Africa, while other migrating birds are spread from Romania to Turkey and Syria.
