Young stork’s flying lessons

This video from England is called Dragonflies of East Kent.

From the Google cache of Dear Kitty ModBlog:

7/3/05 at 5:41PM

Mood: Looking Playing: Beautiful Bird, by Travis

The white storks’ (Ciconia ciconia) nesting season is nearing its end.

Today, one of the two young storks, still with black, not yet red, beaks, stood on the edge of the nest in the meadow opposite the town hall. It was flapping its wings, to learn to fly soon.

The other young stork was sitting down. One of the parents flew to the nest to join it. It made the typical “clattering” sound with its bill.

Around the nest: jackdaws, swifts, cabbage white, flying.

Black-tailed skimmer

In the nature reserve: many dragonflies. Including Orthetrum cancellatum, black-tailed skimmer.

Male; and probably female, but these are are harder to distinguish from other species.

Near the castle pond: blue-tailed damselfly.

On the meadow east of the nature reserve: hare, lapwings, oystercatchers, barn swallows.

I see a small white butterfly. It is a Pieris rapae, a cabbage white.

Also from the Google cache:

7/8/05 at 1:57PM

The two young white storks (Ciconia ciconia) are still at the nest.

One made the typical “clattering” sound with its bill.

One of the parents flew to the nest to join it, with a big piece of hay in its beak to strengthen the nest.

On the meadow east of the nature reserve: shelduck, lapwings, oystercatchers, barn swallows.

Milky storks of Malaysia: here.

Also from the Google cache of Dear Kitty ModBlog:

7/12/05 at 11:33AM

Mood: Looking Playing: Butterfly, by Mariah Carey

Today, again a walk along the railroad.

The butterflies are also still there: various Maniola jurtina, meadow brown, at some distance from each other.

Also, the “litle cousins” of the meadow brown: small heath butterflies.

A cabbage white flies past. Quite some grasshoppers.

A blue-tailed damselfly.

And an earlier entry from the cache:

Birds, butterflies, and hares
Date: 5/4/06 at 2:22PM

Mood: Looking Playing: Butterfly, by Mariah Carey

The white storks have two chicks.

I cannot see them, as a parent sits on them, probably to protect them from the 25 degree centigrade heat.

In the nature reserve, sparrowhawks flying closely to where their nest was last year.

In the meadow, an oystercatcher on his nest.

Hares. A northern lapwing.

Shelducks.

A peacock (not a bird; a butterfly).

Also scores of its distant relatives, longhorn moths.

Gathering in groups on bushes every spring.

The bush where they used to congegrate isn’t there any more.

So now they congegraste here, near the main road to the castle.

In the castle pond, a great crested grebe on its nest.

A coot drives away three tame ducks.

Again, from the cache, 2/25/05:

In the Dutch village of Warmond, white storks (Ciconia ciconia) were today preparing for the new nesting season.

One stork stood on the nest in the meadow opposite the town hall, making the typical “clattering” sound with its bill. The other stork flew circles around it.

For decades in the second half of the twentieth century, this nest had been empty; like many stork nests in The Netherlands during disastrous population decline.

However, the Dutch society for the protection of birds set up a captive breeding program in 1969. After freeing the captive bred young, numbers went up again. So also Warmond has nesting storks once again.

However, many of these do not migrate to Africa in winter, as European storks are supposed to do. As they were used to staying in the breeding stations in winter as well? Or has global warming anything to do with this?

Anyway, the storks were at the nest, much earlier than traditionally, and even though it was cold and somewhat snowy.

On a bigger meadow a bit further away, hundreds of Northern lapwings sat. Traditionally, they stay in The Netherlands in winter, only migrating South in a really harsh or snowy winter.

At least in winter, they congegrate in large groups. Somewhat like with North American Mormon crickets, these large groups maybe offer better protection from predators etc.

From the Google cache, 7/11/05:

The two young white storks (Ciconia ciconia) are still at the nest.

On the meadow beneath it, their two parents stood, preening their feathers.

One of the parents later flew to the nest to join the young.

Also on that meadow, jackdaws. Among them, one bird, also black, but bigger: a carrion crow.

In the nature reserve: a red admiral. Male and female blue-tailed damselflies. A meadow brown.

On the meadow east of the nature reserve: lapwings, oystercatchers, barn swallows.

From the Google cache:

4/5/06 at 5:38PM

Today, again, two white storks at their nest.

A ring necked parakeet flies close to a village house.

In the nature reserve, a stock dove.

The bat research with ladders up hollow trees is still going on.

In the meadow east of the reserve: grey lag geese, wood pigeon, coots, moorhen; a hare.