And now the telephoto lens is at home. Who could have guessed that a trip to the Princes’ Island of Büyükada, off the coast of Istanbul, would result in such a spectacle? Suddenly they are there, coming in waves by the thousands, and it feels like the flow of birds never stops, spiraling up into the sky directly above you and then, from a great height, sailing on. So for half an hour you stand up here at the viewpoint at the monastery of St. George and stare into the dappled blue. Until the neck becomes stiff and you have to lie down – to continue watching while lying down.
Twice a year, in autumn and spring, the storks make their journey from Europe to Africa and back. The winter in Europe is – so far at least – too cold for them. Above all, however, it is the impending shortage of food that draws the birds to the warm south, where you can see them stalking in the fertile land along the Nile in Egypt or looking for reptiles between buffaloes in Uganda.
But how does the big, heavy stork manage this long distance? Not alone in the rowing flight. Storks use warm updrafts for migration, which allow them energy-saving gliding. And in the course of evolution they have found exactly those routes along which there are strong thermals. One group, the “West Migration”, flies over the narrow Mediterranean Sea near Gibraltar. The “Eastern migration” – and this includes most of the storks breeding in Germany – can be observed in Israel when they stop in the salt marshes of Eilat or fly past Sharm el-Sheikh. And if you are particularly lucky, you will be at the Bosporus at the right time. And now, in April.