"He's not so white and fluffy after all." The head of the stork rescue center shared many interesting facts about them

A hobby or an important mission grew out of an accident. One day, Dmitry simply found a stork chick on the edge of his plot, thrown out of the nest by its parents, and rescued it.

— I managed to raise the chick. I called Marina Sidzenets at the "White Stork House" in the Pskov region, consulted on how to do everything correctly, and was able to release the bird into the wild. A year later, I took several chicks "under my wing", and in the third year, I opened an environmental protection institution.

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In Belarus, this is the first and only stork rehabilitation center. But it is necessary. Because storks quite often throw chicks out of the nest, even perfectly healthy individuals. The thing is that the female lays eggs not all at once, but with an interval of several days, for example, bringing 4-5 eggs during the week. Accordingly, the little ones hatch with a small interval as well.

But these few days are crucial for the chicks. The last hatched chick in the nest will be the smallest and weakest, which means its brothers and sisters will receive more food from the parents, and the critical difference between them will grow. To avoid wasting resources on an initially weak bird, parents throw such chicks out of the nest.

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Such chicks are often picked up by kind-hearted Belarusians. But this rarely benefits the birds. Storks get used to people very quickly. A week near a human is enough, and a young stork will no longer approach its relatives. It will live among people and perceive them as individuals of its own species.

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— If you see storks begging at bus stops, these are not poor birds that couldn't fly away. These are imprinted individuals who consider humans to be representatives of their own species and a source of food. They will never produce offspring.

Recently, we took such a stork from its "wild environment". It learned the schedule and met the same suburban bus. We hoped that the bird would be able to return to nature, but no, unfortunately. Such birds are helpless; they need to be fed and kept in special aviaries.

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In general, simply raising wild birds on your dacha plot, as is done here, is a crime. If you want to help a chick, you need to take it from the wild, call the district inspectorate for natural resources and environmental protection, complete the procedure, and hand it over to specialists. Otherwise, you are breaking the law. The fine for this is up to 20 basic units. And I am sure that a few people should be demonstratively punished, then people will stop committing acts of barbarism with good intentions.

Recently, a bird with a double twisted wing fracture was brought to me. The stork was in pain from the slightest careless movement, tears were streaming from its eyes, and it had been in this state for at least 4 months. The people with whom it lived believe they saved the bird, but I call it latent cruelty to animals. The wing had to be amputated, but at least the stork stopped suffering from pain. Just imagine what a living creature can feel when its wing dangles like a rag between its legs.

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In the "Brest Stork House", abandoned chicks are raised in special aviaries with their wild relatives, so that they have minimal contact with humans.

— We have a wintering house and an open aviary where the birds live with their own kind. In summer, we arrange improvised nests on the roof, settling the chicks based on their friendly preferences. You can observe this process – we broadcast the birds' daily lives online.

— Storks are considered a symbol of Belarus, why?

— I delved into this question for a long time but couldn't find an answer as to when the stork became considered "our" bird. Although recently, due to global warming, the stork is migrating further and further east, and it is possible that in 100 years there will be no storks in Belarus, and some other bird will become the symbol of our region. I think the stork reflects the good traits of the Belarusian mentality – it is a harmless, beautiful, family-oriented, faithful bird. Although, of course, if you dig into the stork's habits, many questions will arise about it; it's not so white and fluffy after all.

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First of all, it's a predator; it can hunt not only fish, insects, lizards, but also catch a young rabbit. There's even a theory that this is why the myth that storks bring babies was born. Allegedly, when a stork drags a rabbit into the nest, it squeaks, just like an infant. I officially declare that this is nonsense. A stork kills its prey on the spot.

In fact, the ancient Germans were to blame for the spread of the myth. They held weddings during the storks' departure period, and the birds returned exactly 9 months later, when couples had children.

By the way, storks themselves reach sexual maturity at about 3 years of age. So the young storks that have flown south now will return to us only after a few years. All this time the birds will live in Africa. And they will return home to build nests, form pairs, and raise children.

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— Are storks monogamous?

— Yes, though there are nuances. Males and females winter separately. Moreover, at a great distance from each other. They can be separated by 2-3 thousand kilometers. So, males usually return to Belarus earlier. And they begin to prepare the nest, waiting for their mate. But if the female is delayed on the way, another individual may show interest in him, and the stork will not deny her attention. Then, before the return of the "legitimate" pair, a conflict situation will arise. There will be a battle. People periodically observe these scenes in the wild and mistakenly assume that two males are fighting. No, these are females fighting for the nest.

This summer, Dmitry effectively became a foster dad to stork chicks. Their stork mother died. She was hit by a truck on the highway. Eggs remained in the nest. Dmitry received permission to take and incubate them. And not in vain, because the story further developed like a fairy tale. The one about the evil stepmother.

The eggs that remained in the nest were replaced with chicken eggs. The male diligently incubated them for several days, but on the fourth day, instinct took over, and the bird flew off to forage for food.

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— Already at this time, the chicks in the eggs could have died, because disrupting the temperature regime, even for a short time, is not allowed. Even if there were not eggs but already hatched chicks in the orphaned nest, they still would not have survived without the other parent. While one searches for food, the other warms the little ones. Stork chicks have very imperfect thermoregulation; they can die from the slightest cool breeze.

So, I don't know how or from where, but the females in the district found out about the "unattached" male stork and began to fight over him. Finally, one of the ladies won the battle. The male succumbed to her feminine charms and invited her to his living space… And the first thing the female did after settling into the nest was to throw out all the eggs. So, stories about harmless storks are a great exaggeration.

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— Have you ever been pecked by a stork?

— Yes, it wasn't painful because I managed to pull my hand away. But the stork still touched my wrist, so I couldn't move my hand for a long time. In general, a stork's beak is a powerful weapon; it can break the skull of a young bear with it, and kills small animals instantly.

— And what do you feed such serious predators?

— Chicken necks, day-old chicks, fish. The most expensive part isn't even the food itself, but its storage. A freezer box, which holds 210 kg of day-old chicks, "consumes" a lot of energy. We pay 300 rubles for electricity every month.

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— Was it difficult to open a rehabilitation center for wild birds in our country?

— You won't believe it, but the hardest part was agreeing on the name. Either the quotation marks were in the wrong place, or a letter wasn't capitalized. Everything else went quite quickly and without red tape.

I am well known to the local nature protection services. They checked the aviaries, made sure everything was in order. And we started operating as a legal entity. Today, we exist entirely on donations from bird lovers.

There's another problem: we won't be able to rent the land where the storks are located next year, which means we'll lose the conditions under which we can keep the birds. We are looking for ways to avoid this, as it would be a shame to lose the work we've done and our achievements.

We've accomplished a lot. This year we rescued a Red-listed black stork, a swan, several owls... The work is well-established, and we have specialists we work with. They were difficult to find, as ornithology is a young and currently unpopular field. It's much more profitable for veterinarians to deal with cats and dogs than with capricious and poorly studied birds.

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— Therapy is fully covered by Brest specialist Elena Tkalich from the "Sovushka" clinic, and surgery by Minsk veterinarian Ekaterina Verasova from "AibiVET". We send birds to her appointments by the nearest mini-bus.

Thanks to our volunteer Alexandra Shapashnikova, who has repeatedly received storks at the station, transported them to the clinic, and then cared for them during the post-operative period. Without her, it would be impossible to save the birds. For example, with fractures, treatment must begin as soon as possible, as callus formation at the injury site occurs within 5-7 days. After this, the chance of the individual returning to its natural environment sharply decreases.

Work is carried out not only on rescue but also on ringing and counting storks.

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— Now in Belarus, you can often see German storks forming pairs here. Either they really like Belarusian beauties, or the secret is that in Germany they actively "ring" their individuals.

We also received permission from the Republican Bird Ringing Center to work with storks. We have already ordered items from Poland and are waiting for them to be ready. According to European standards, Belarusian birds are assigned green plastic rings with the capital letter E. They are visible from afar, so without getting too close to the bird, one can identify a domestic individual from a distance.

But a post-mortem ring – a small, metal one – can usually only be seen on a dead bird.

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"Brest Stork House" is helped by nature lovers; thanks to them, some storks will be equipped with GPS trackers next year to monitor their movements. For example, it will be possible to find out exactly where the bird settled for wintering.

However, while Dmitry Avdeev contemplates this prospect, although attractive to a researcher, it jeopardizes the stork's life. The thing is, in Africa, birds with trackers are hunted specifically, as the trackers can be profitably sold for parts or the SIM card can be used…

Unfortunately, living close to people does not only bring good to storks. The population of white-winged birds is decreasing.

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— People think there are more birds. This is because many abandoned villages have appeared in Belarus, from which not only people but also storks have left. Naturally, birds fly to where there are people, and people rejoice that more and more bird nests appear around inhabited places. But this increase is just an illusion.

Although the situation with white storks is, of course, not as critical as with black storks. Because the black stork shuns people, it has found itself on the brink of extinction. Its nests are constantly destroyed by wild animals, which do not dare to approach human dwellings. Therefore, the bird reproduces with great difficulty.

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— And can a white stork be crossbred with a black one?

— Oh yes! They pair up excellently in the wild. And they build a common nest in a very amusing way. The white stork likes straw, while the black one prefers moss — and they take turns throwing out the "excess" from the nest until they agree. And the birds from a black-and-white pair turn out grey.

By the way, 2026 has been declared the Year of the Black Stork in our country. We hope that it will bring only good to the most Belarusian of all Belarusian birds.

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