White storks build the biggest nests of any bird you might see in Germany. A nest can be 2 metres wide and weigh almost a tonne. They build them out of sticks on top of roofs, chimneys, church towers and even electricity poles. The same pair of storks often comes back to the same nest year after year.
When a stork chick hatches, it stays in the nest for about two months while the parents fly back and forth bringing food - frogs, worms, mice, fish. Both parents take turns. By the end of summer, the chicks are almost as big as their parents and ready to fly.
Then comes the most amazing thing they do. Every autumn, white storks gather in big groups and fly south - all the way from Germany to Africa. The trip is around 10,000 kilometres, and many of them go as far south as the grasslands south of the Sahara. In spring, they fly all the way back. They live on two continents.
Storks find their way without maps. Scientists think they use the sun, the stars, and even small magnetic signals from the Earth itself - like an in-built compass. Young storks fly the route for the first time without ever having been told the way.

