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The intention for this "Expert Answers" forum is to provide Urmas, Renno and other experts with a faster way to find your questions
Now that nesting time is here, they are more busy than in winter months, but it also means that we have more questions, too.
Using this format may save our experts some time if they can't always read the whole forum.

This section is to be about Black Storks.
Rachowiak's questions from yesterday and Urmas's answer will make a good starting point.

We are waiting for the arrival of storks, but the experience of last year raises the following questions to ask (I think that the answer can only Urmas):

1st Last year Padis not found a partner in the nest and before had only once reached the breeding success here. Will this year be willing to fly to the nest?

2nd If I remember correctly, last year Donna moved to another male in another nest. What is the probability that this year she will revert to her old nest?

3rd What is the probability that this year there will be young hatched before 2008?

Thanks Rachowiak, for your interest!
The questions are quite difficult to answer very exactly...
1. I don't know, but as here in edge of range, here is a shortage of females, every male should work well and be ready for to have a family. Think, Padis feels itself as owner of that nest.
2.Last year I only supposed so, actually I don't know for sure. But in the neighbouring nest appeared female after two years. We tagged that female, but unfortunately she perished in southern Sudan, near border to Congo DR.
3. Probability could be from zero to bingo!

Tomorrow I very hope to make online migration map public and then you could look by yourself, where they are!

..and that is a marvellous idea.!! We thank you.

As others have said, thank you for the map! It is wonderful, especially with data going back all the way to 2005.

A question: Nearly all GPS-tagged black storks are males (only exception at the moment Leida?). Easier to catch the males or just chance or other reasons?

Edit: It just is unequal at the moment. When I went back and made a more careful count, numbers of male and female storks over the years are reasonably equal.

Here simply are mostly males around and by trapping its difficult to determine, who is male or female. So that shows probably the sex ratio in our area.

It could be also, that males are not so shy and appear more frequently in trap.

But we are more interested in females, because any poisoning should be more affect on females and is easier to determine contaminants in failed eggs, etc.

A question I would like to ask yet a year ago.

Last year in Portugal BS nest there were three eggs, two chicks hatched and one egg did not, because it may be infertile. Those chicks were fed, grew up, but neither parents nor chicks did not eat the unhatched egg and did not do anything to it! It stayed in the nest until ringing when ppl removed it. How this fact can be explained?

Unhatched eggs in stork nest are quite common. The adult storks do not damage their own eggs (due instincts) and the eggs are not eatable for storks. The same for healthy storklets - eggs are like nest material for them.
But the failed egg could broke in sun heat and then that smells not good, at least for human...

So, the rule for any storklet number more than 3 and LSE chick number more than 1 is: don't want be eaten up, don't hatch at all?

Think, that is not the rule for BS, there could be 1-5 juveniles well fledged in nest. Every adult probably decides by him/herself, what is the limit for current year...

but for Spotted Eagles that is true!

Hi All, hope this turns out to be a successful season. I was wondering what those round pancake things are on the nest (under the snow now)? Is it just moss?

Also, is there a way to tell the identity of the black storks by the sounds they make?
In other words, does each stork have a different sound so they are identified by other storks.
Maybe I should be asking this question in a different section of the forum.

Good to see the camera on line and my fingers are crossed for the arrival of a pair.

Most probably there is possibility to identify individuals of BS by voice they produce. But as this species has not very much developed vocalisation, they communicate rather by visual signs - the separating of voices could be technically difficult. If somebody has absolute hearing (I'm situated far form that ability) and could separate different storks, then it works. BAsically there are some programs for computers to analyse and determine individual birds by their voice (like Cranes), but I never heard these used for BS....

I think nobody knows that! Maybe we will be first to see that. During those years what webcam has been up male storks had fight between themselves, but not with other species.

Think, Juta is right!
We have all-time observations of three years, but no such has happened, yet.
Somewhere I read, that very rarely the BSs nest has been occupied by other species, if the owner is at home. Don't know, on what that is based.

A question about different behavior of Donna and Tiina when their storklets flew away.

Donna: just spent in the empty nest some time doing nothing, then even marked it and flew away.
Tiina: worked in the nest, preparing it to the next season, the same did Tiit in 2011 after Neli left.

Could the behavior of Donna mean that she wasn't going to return there in the next season?