Satellite tracking of a White Stork from Italy to Morocco

Abstract

Two young White Storks were tracked by satellite during a part of their first migratory journey from the nest colony (settled in Piedmont, NW Italy) to the wintering ground in Western Africa. Both birds left westward, but only one of the two birds provided reliable data which allowed the reconstruction of its migratory route along the coasts of France and Spain up to Morocco. A new aspect of the journey is that the bird did not pass from Europe to Africa at Gibraltar, the storks' known western route. Despite the storks' tendency to avoid flying over large stretches of sea, the tracked bird crossed the Alboran sea from De Gata Cape (Spain) to Tres Forcas Cape (Morocco), thus flying about 120 km over the open sea.