12 May Stork platforms have tenants.
Nesting platforms for storks, installed in Umianowice, have tenants. On two of the six structures installed in March this year, pairs of storks built nests. Now they are waiting for offspring. The chicks will hatch in two weeks.
Marcin Słoma from the Świętokrzyskie and Nadnidziańskie Landscape Parks Complex informs that the storks appeared just a month after the platforms were installed.
– It’s a success. On the other hand, the full triumph will be when all the platforms are populated. Remember, however, that the place is also important. We have recreated meadow habitats that are an ideal base for storks foraging. The platforms alone would not fulfill their role if the storks and chicks had nothing to eat – he adds.
Special platforms for storks are also built by energy specialists in cooperation with ornithologists. Ewa Wiatr – coordinator for communication, PGE Dystrybucja informs that over a dozen or so years, over 28 thousand platforms have been built. In the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, over 100 were built in the last year alone.
– Platforms are necessary because storks choose poles for nesting, and this is dangerous for birds, because they can get electrocuted, and for the stability of the poles – he explains.
Power engineers are also active in the maintenance of nests, among others at the so-called relief. This involves removing and trimming the branches built up by storks. Ewa Wiatr points out that this is a very dangerous occupation. A stork’s nest can be 2 meters in diameter and weigh almost a ton.
– Last year, we recorded almost 1.2 thousand. interventions related to stork’s nests. We want the birds to be safe, which is why we install, for example, special deterrents at transformer stations or high voltage pylons, so that the birds do not sit down and thus are not electrocuted – he describes.
The population of storks in the world is stable, in recent years there has been an increase in the number of these birds. It is approx. 200 thousand pairs interestingly, every fifth stork is of Polish origin. The platform, is a sturdy and weather resistant galvanized steel structure with a diameter of approx. 120 cm. It also has a wreath woven from thinner branches. The whole thing weighs approx. 30 kg. Ultimately, four more such nesting platforms are to be installed in Umianowice.
source: Radio Kielce
https://www.radio.kielce.pl/wiadomosci/platformy-dla-bocianow-maja-lokatorow,158591
