On the 2nd of January, Petros Tsakmakis photographed a Black Stork (Ciconia nigra) with a plastic ring in the Polichnitos Salt Pans. After making contact with the Ukranian programme for that species (through cr-birding) we got the life history of the bird in just one day!
It was a female bird that was born last year (in a brood of 3) in a zoological garden from parents incapable to live in the wild. It was ringed in August 2018 and to reach Lesvos it covered 1120 km in 152 days. A very interesting finding indeed! In the beggining of the month Lefteris Kakkalis had recorded 9 Black Storks in Polichnitos Salts Pans, while 2 more were present in the Kalloni Salt Pans.
What is also interesting about the finding is how much the media found this exceptional and the incident got maximum attention. It was covered in every local media (printed and electronical) and also in the evening news of one of the major TV channels in Greece (ok the story said it stopped on Lesvos to breed(!) instead of migrating to Africa and the the Kalloni Environmental Center personnel is taking good care of it from now on (!), but I should not complain…). The interest was even greater from the Ukranian side as Petros was interviewed by a TV channel (see the story on the Ukranian news here).
I am meeting Petros for a local radio interview tomorrow morning. We will be happy to demonstrate all the thrills one can get as a birder and a bird photographer, the significance of bird ringing and last but not least the importance of Lesvos for birds.
Lesvos Bird News 