Germans Anxiously Await Return Of National Bird's Beloved Brood

Six white storks, a species nearly wiped out in many parts of northern Europe, were born in a single nest last spring in Gummern, Germany. (By Lorie Karnath -- The Explorers Club)

The first census recorded a population of 422 birds, but the numbers began dropping steadily soon after. A diversion of a branch of the Elbe River eliminated prime feeding habitat for the storks -- they love to munch on frogs and other marshy critters -- and wetlands were plowed under for crops.

By the 1950s, the number of storks had plummeted by almost 90 percent. In the past decade or so, thanks to revived efforts to protect the storks, the population has stabilized at about 45 to 50 birds, according to Otto Kiehn, a retired judge who served for several years as the district's officially appointed Storchenvater, or stork father.

Kiehn said stork fertility is heavily dependent on food supply and weather conditions. If it is too wet or cold, chicks can drown or freeze in the nest. If feeding conditions are poor, mother storks will instinctively push selected eggs out of the nest to enhance the survival rate for the others.

Unusual flooding along the Elbe last year was probably responsible for the stork boomlet in Gummern, making it easy for storks to find worms and frogs, Kiehn said. "This is the wonderful result of a flood," he added.

For decades, Gummern had three separate stork nests to which the birds would return year after year. But the numbers gradually thinned, and only one remains today.

Besides their high mortality rates, storks are choosy about where they will build their nests. When one Gummern homeowner put on a new roof years ago, the storks that had nested there abandoned the spot and never returned.

Hans Christoph van Rohr, whose family lives across the lane from the remaining nest, said he is itching to put up a pole in his back yard in hopes of eventually luring a new nesting pair, perhaps even one of the birds born across the street.

"Everybody loves to have those storks around," said van Rohr. "It was the most lovely thing, the most lovely sight I've ever seen in my life, when the six of them left the nest and began flying away in sequence, one after the other."