Sunday, January 24, 2016

Storks occupy landfill – St. Petersburg and the World

In Germany, conducted a study that proved that human activity on the planet negatively affect the behavior of birds. We are talking about storks, who began to settle in landfills and are now no longer migrate south in the winter.

An international team of scientists, who led Dr. Andrea Flak from the Institute of Ornithology Max Planck in Germany, has selected 70 young storks from eight countries and attach to them the GPS sensor in front of their first migration.

The researchers tracked the flight of storks who were born in Armenia, Greece, Poland, Russia, Spain, Germany, Tunisia and Uzbekistan. The findings are published in the journal Science Advances.

It turned out that the storks from Russia, Poland and Greece, followed the tradition and continue to fly away for the winter in Africa, sometimes flies to the south of the continent.

However, storks from Spain, Tunisia and Germany remained north of the Sahara. Storks from Armenia flew at a relatively short distance, and storks from Uzbekistan remained at home.

According to the researchers, the majority of the birds left the winter north of the Sahara, ate in landfills, which allowed them to find food without spending This energy on a long flight.

The remaining for the winter in Uzbekistan storks, apparently, eat local fish hatcheries and did not try to, as before, to fly to Afghanistan or Pakistan.

White Stork – the most famous of the stork. It is a white bird with black wing tips, long-necked, long thin red beak and long reddish legs. When the stork wings folded, it seems that the entire rear part of the body is black stork.

From his Ukrainian name – Chernoguz. Females in color indistinguishable from males, but somewhat smaller. Growth of white stork is 100-125 cm wingspan of 155-200 cm. The weight of an adult bird reaches 4 kg. The life expectancy of a white stork is on average 20 years. Externally similar to the white stork stork Far East, but in recent years it is considered a separate species. White stork – one of the symbols of Belarus.

According to the researchers, the majority of the birds left the winter north of the Sahara, ate in landfills, which allowed them to find food without spending energy on a long flight.

«Those who remain to the north of the Sahara in the winter, enjoy an abundance of landfills in Morocco. For the white stork is a good place as where you can find plenty of food. But then, of course, there is a proportion of the risk: eating something not in the dump, you can quickly die “- the study says.

The researchers point out that while the impact of human activity can go on benefit migratory birds, such a change in the behavior of birds may cause long-term consequences for the ecosystem.

For example, in tropical Africa storks eat locusts. White storks also eat other insects, frogs, toads, tadpoles, rodents, snakes, lizards and worms.

Commenting on the findings, Stuart Butchart from Birdlife International drew attention to the fact that human activities can have a negative impact on migratory birds.

«While there are other examples that indicate that some migratory birds are beneficial changes in the environment created by man – as, for example, in the case of blackcap, which last flew in Britain only in the summer, and now here winters due to warmer weather and a large number of bird feeders in gardens, but it is only an exception “, – he said.

« The population of a much larger number of migratory birds is reduced from -this disappearance of their usual habitat in places fledging or flight. The reason for that, among other things – an intensive and expanding agriculture, logging and zastraivanie seashore “- adds Stuart Butchart.


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