The rollercoaster life of the Dutch white storks
The rollercoaster life of the Dutch white storks
The white stork (Ciconia Ciconia): from extinction in the 60’s to about 1.600 breeding pairs in The Netherlands nowadays. What did it take to re-introduce this bird? We get an exclusive look in the last remaining stork station, where the birds were bred and which transformed into a stork hospital.
Further, we learn about the urban storks in The Hague. Why is not everyone excited about this charismatic bird? Caroline is on a mission to turn stork critics into stork friends. To protect the nests, she starts collecting data with year-round monitoring and ringing of the stork nestlings. For this, we climb the city roofs and… we get some unexpected help. A research project is born.
Fasten your seatbelts to take a ride though the white stork season.
Organizer
Caroline (1971) was already looking at birds from her cradle. As a child, she wandered through the neighbourhoods of The Hague with her binoculars, the early days of ‘urban birding’. Now she regularly spreads her wings to help with bird conservation projects all over the world. She nursed penguins in South Africa, trained amazon parrots on Bonaire and guided overland trips from The Netherlands to The Gambia, following the migrating birds. Meanwhile, getting a little addicted to ring reading: wherever she goes, she is scanning bird legs for bands.
But she always returns to her nest, to ‘the one’ that brought her to this planet: the white stork. This species was almost extinct and mum had to take little Caroline to the zoo, to finally see this rare bird. Back then, she could never have dreamt that she would literally be standing at the cradle of baby storks. And she would be monitoring a growing stork population in her hometown. It is just the beginning of many feathered adventures…
Caroline works as volunteer for the Association for Bird Protection of The Hague, Sovon Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology, Stork Research & Knowhow and the World of Birds Foundation. With her enthusiastic excursions, she helps people to discover that the world is one big bird paradise.