White Stork Ciconia ciconia (Linnaeus, 1758)
Bell’s Bush, Blagdon Lake © Nigel Milbourne 2019
- One female, adult, 20th-21st, 23rd-25th Sep. 2019 (Martin Maill (photo), N.R. Milbourne, K. Williams et al.)
A birder at Chew Valley Lake rang me late in the afternoon of 20th September to say there was a White Stork flying west towards Blagdon. Unfortunately, I wasn’t at home at the time, but I managed to get to the lake just as the sun dipped below the horizon. Fishery Ranger Martin Maill stopped me and told me he’d seen a strange bird at the Top End some 45 minutes earlier and showed me a photograph he’d taken with his phone. It was the White Stork I had gone to look for! I drove along the south side road hoping the bird was still there, and sure enough, it was standing in the corner of the meadow at Bells Bush. I rang a couple of local birders who I thought might get to the lake before darkness fell and took some photos myself from the road. It was apparently wearing a ring on its left leg and Mark Hynam was able to read it as Blue GB58. This meant it was from the Knepp re-introduction scheme, and they wrote back and said “Thank you for your email regarding the sighting of a white stork at Blagdon Lake, North Somerset on 20/09/2019. This is indeed one of our white storks and is one of our free flying adults who came to us in 2018 from Poland. We have had multiple sightings of her in your area over the last few days. The sightings coming in are vital for the project to learn about how these birds are behaving post release and we are monitoring their movements closely. Thank you for providing so much information.” This is the first record of this species to be seen at Blagdon, but if the re-introduction scheme is successful, hopefully it won’t be the last.
Bibliography (sources of information):
Last update: 17th December 2024