Classroom lesson · Wildlife · 🇺🇦 Ukraine

Black stork - the shy forest stork

A glossy black bird that nests deep in Ukrainian forests

A glossy black stork with a red beak standing by a forest stream

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

The black stork is a tall, glossy black bird with a bright red beak and red legs. It is the shy cousin of the white stork - while white storks happily nest on rooftops and chimneys in towns, black storks prefer to stay hidden in the deepest, quietest parts of the forest, far from people.

Tell me more

Black storks build huge stick nests high up in old oak or pine trees, often near a quiet river or lake. The same pair returns to the same nest every year, adding new sticks to it. After many years, the nest can be over a metre across - big enough for a child to curl up in.

They feed mostly on fish, frogs and water insects. A black stork wades carefully through shallow water, watching the surface with its sharp eyes. When it spots something, its long beak shoots down faster than you can blink. Most fish never even see it coming.

Every autumn, Ukrainian black storks set off on an enormous journey. They fly all the way to Africa for the winter, crossing the Mediterranean Sea, the Sahara Desert and ending up in places like Sudan or Ethiopia. Then in spring they fly all the way back. That is around 10,000 kilometres twice a year.

Because they are so shy, black storks are hard to spot - even in places where they live. Scientists use radio trackers to follow them and learn where they go. Children in Ukraine sometimes get to see a black stork chick on a webcam, watching from a hidden camera high up in the nest.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01Why might one stork choose to nest next to humans, while another stork prefers to hide in the forest?
  2. 02A black stork flies to Africa and back every year. What would you need to remember if you were a stork making that journey?
  3. 03Webcams let us watch animals without disturbing them. How is that different from going to a zoo?
Try this

Classroom activity

On a world map, draw the route a black stork might take from Ukraine to Sudan. Mark the countries it flies over. Now measure how many countries that is. Imagine flying with only your wings, no engine, all that way - how many days might it take?