Белый аист — хищник, которого мы приняли за сказку

The white stork kills poisonous snakes with a single blow of its beak, swallows hares whole, and throws its own chicks out of the nest. Yet we consider it a symbol of happiness. Why? The full story of a creature we know less well than we think. In this video: ▪️ How a stork hunts—a beak strike that pierces the skulls of rodents ▪️ Why flapping flight costs it 23 times more than soaring ▪️ 10,000 kilometers of migration with almost no wingbeats ▪️ A ton-sized nest and the microecosystem inside it ▪️ Why parents abandon weak chicks ▪️ A stork with a spear in its neck that changed world science ▪️ Where does the legend of babies come from? 📚 Primary sources: — Tortosa F.S., Redondo T. (1992). Motives for Parental Infanticide in White Storks Ciconia ciconia. Ornis Scandinavica. — Flack A. et al. (2024). Experience reduces route selection for conspecifics by the collectively migrating white stork. Current Biology. — Zurell D. et al. (2018). Costs of migratory decisions. Science Advances. Pfeilstorch - Zoologische Sammlung, Universität Rostock. — Zbyryt A. et al. (2021). Mass of white stork nests predicted from their size. Global Ecology and Conservation. — White Stork, Wikipedia (en) — summary data. White stork, Ciconia ciconia, stork documentary, white stork migration, Pfeilstorch, stork hunting snakes, white stork nest, science fiction, wildlife, birds of Europe, stork bearing babies, infanticide in birds, migratory birds, soaring flight, thermals, stork facts, nature documentary, bird biology, stork migration Africa