After eight years, a young stork lives again in the Schwabener Horst market. But just one day after stork expert Richard Straub from the State Association for Bird Protection (LBV) photographed the young bird, a call came from the Markt Schwaben regulatory office on Friday that a dead stork was lying in the moss.
Apparently there had been a fight. But the Markt Schwaben pair of storks was steadfast enough to defend the eyrie against other storks. A young animal died in the process, a young bird survived, which not only the kindergarten children are happy about.
Background: The former elementary school building, the adjoining hostel of the kindergarten “Vorschule eV” needed a comprehensive renovation in 2014, in which the state association for bird protection was also involved because of the stork’s nest.
Because a worker disturbed the storks, the eyrie had been uninhabited since 2014
The schedule of completing the renovations on the roof by February 2014 was met. As has been the norm for two decades, the storks had arrived and were already nesting when an inquisitive worker in charge of the interior renovation climbed out through a skylight to get a closer look at the storks. As the LBV explains in a press release, the stork couple then fled. According to the LBV, the birds “had lost confidence in the safety of the eyrie”.
The Swabian moss is now a feeding habitat for the stork pair in Siggenhofen, Forstinning and the Swabians. So the tension was great, which stork would it be? Tragically, a breeding stork has been missing in Siggenhofen for a few weeks, as a result of which the young died and only the remaining partner can be seen sporadically in the eyrie. So if the remaining stork were the fatality, the situation in Siggenhofen would look bleak. But it could also be a stork from Forstinning, where one of two young storks still lives.
However, based on the ringing, it turned out that it was a migrating stork from Switzerland and that the surrounding stork nests are not affected. The two employees of the public order office also recognized the lacerations around the chest area. The suspicion is that a loose dog, or rather its owner, is responsible. This year fawns and a pheasant have already been killed in the moss. Although information boards and flyers pointed out the wild nature in the moss to visitors, it apparently happened.
The LBV asks the Moos visitors to adhere to these rules. The LBV announced that it would file a complaint.