white stork ciconia ciconia

I usually photograph White Storks att Flyinge Riding Academy. It was a centre for the Swedish Stork Project and quire a lot of birds nest on the roofs. The are usually a couple of nests there too but this is the first time I've got close enough for decent pictures.

I was lucky to get the whole bird in the frame. This place has been part of the the Swedish White Stork Project for years but I can't see any rings or bling on this bird so I'm guessing it hooked up with some Swedish storks during the winter.

A couple of pictures from our trip to the south of Sweden at Easter today. I took an awful lot of stork pictures but I think this one's my favourite.

Happy New Year to everyone on Bird Forum! The weather's been miserable here in Stockholm, especially today - drizzle and darkness,so I've chosen 2 pictures with a blue sky from the spring.

Flyinge is a great pace for White Storks . The White Stork breeding and release project was based there and I think a lot lot of the birds that were raised there return to nest. This one didn'r seem to be ringed though so probably not one of theirs.

I apologise in advance for the quality of these next 3 images. Very distant, so heavily cropped through a wire mesh fence, bright sunshine and windy.

We're off to Lake Tkern for a long weekend early tomorrow morning. Really looking forward to getting away from the pressures of work.

As the nest is done and the eggs are laid finding food is the first priority. The bird went on feeding but kept a watchful eye on me.

White Stork foraging on a meadow.

It was a good year for the white storks in my area. Three youngsters, sunbathing on the top of a dam, let me get very close to them and spend more than half an hour watching them preening. A quick scratch of the beak was the start of the preening session fallowed by twenty five minutes of...

The birds looked at me for a moment then went on with the search for food.

Even the dry pastures can provide a snack.

It is a good year for the white storks. Many nests have four youngsters waiting for food. Getting the food seems to be a full time job for the parents.

I had deployed the setup at a spot that turned out to be a favorable one for capturing this landing sequence on camera. Check out how the wings and tail are angled like flaps on an aircraft!

I was fortunate to witness White Storks congregating, ceasing the opportunity provided by the farmer mowing the hay. Here two Storks fighting for a vole about to escape. I had the scope deployed, anticipating some action to take place.