Extraordinary recovery of a stork from Bizkaia in Algeria

Zaim Beddiaf, worker of a petrol exploration company in Algeria, received on 6 August in Hassi Messaoud, a town in the Algerian desert, a stork of Biscay. This stork is a female that had been ringed last year by members of Aranzadi Society of Sciences in Plentzia (Basque Country). Taking into account the ring that the stork was carrying, Zaim could contact with the banding office of Aranzadi in San Sebastian where he was informed of the origin of the specimen.

As Zaim told us, the stork appeared half-submerged in a settling basin used to collect water, soil and rock debris from a petrol drilling. He was in good physical condition but dirty, so they proceeded to clean and release in the surroundings of the facilities. We are thankful for the work that Zaim Beddiaf has done saving the stork from death and notifying us about it.

This stork was part of a large group that had stopped in the area in their journey to sub-Saharan wintering areas, so it will probably come from spending the summer in the Iberian Peninsula. It was ringed with his two brothers in their nest in 2013 in Plentzia. All three were ringed with a metal ring of Aranzadi Society of Sciences which its corresponding code. They were also put two PVC rings; yellow and black with white code for the banding program of the species in Bizkaia, which serves to identify at a large distance. The code for remote reading of the individual of this research was: AI.

During the period of 2005/2008 was conducted the reintroduction program of the White Stork in the Biosphere Reserve of Urdaibai. In 2007, an individual released in 2005, named Uzelay, was the first to reproduce in Urdaibai and, as a result, that year had two breeds, the firsts being born in Urdaibai for many years.

As from the year 2010, one of these two breeds of Uzelay, a ringed male number 33, built his nest in a phone tower located in the town center. This first year lost their babies because of rain and low temperatures, but it could bring up 4 offspring in 2011, 2 in 2012, 3 in 2013 and 2 in 2014.

Last year we did the transfer of the nest from the phone tower to a platform expressly placed nearby. We use this opportunity to take the three babies and ringed with AI, AJ and AK digits. They were also taken blood samples and feces as part of an epidemiological study conducted by NEIKER.

We hope that our young stork will be able to reach its wintering area beyond the Sahara. The next year, we suppose that it will return to any area of the Basque Country where it will reproduce. Those will be great-granddaughters of Uzelay, the first stork nested in Urdaibai after starting the reintroduction program.

We thank Enrique Ordiales for the submitted photos and Zaim Beddiaf for the help and assistance he has provided.