Storks

8 places to see and hear storks in the wild, in 7 countries from Belgium to Morocco: when each one peaks, where to go on your own, what it costs and what you will hear. Wild animals only, no zoos.

Best time, place by place

Where to go, north to south

• The Zwin: wader passage, ringing season and the stork colonyBelgium · Migration · peak 20 Aug–30 Sep and 15 Mar–31 JulBill-clattering of storks greeting at the nest; dunlin and redshank flocks over the salt marsh at the top of the tide; curlews; the sea behind the dunes; in autumn a steady trickle of migrating pipits and finches over the dike.
• Stork villages: Rühstädt and BergenhusenGermany · Breeding colony (storks, herons…) · peak 20 Apr–20 JulBill-clattering duets from nests on every roof, hissing chicks begging in June, the whoosh of adults landing; swallows, village sparrows and church bells; cranes and geese on the Elbe floodplain behind.
• Pyrenean passes: raptor, stork, pigeon & crane migrationFrance · Migration · peak 20 Aug–5 NovMostly visual, but woodpigeon flocks pass with a rush of wings, cranes bugle over the pass, and pre-dawn passerine flight calls stream through — with gunfire from the neighbouring hunting passes.
• Tree-nesting white stork colony, March floodplainAustria · Breeding colony · peak 20 Apr–10 JulBill-clattering across a colony of 40–50 nests in the oak canopy, chick hissing, black-headed gulls from the oxbows, oriole, nightingale, tree frogs and fire-bellied toads in the flooded meadows, Konik horses.
• White stork village and floodplain summer, Lonjsko poljeCroatia · Breeding colony · peak 1 May–15 JulBill-clattering duets from every rooftop, chick hissing and begging, spoonbill and heron colonies, marsh and pool frogs from the oxbows, corncrake and quail in the meadows at night, cattle bells and village life.
• Strait of Gibraltar: raptor & stork passageSpain · Migration · peak 15 Aug–30 Sep and 1 Mar–30 AprMostly visual — kettles of thousands — but bee-eater flocks pour over calling all day, honey buzzards pass at head height in a levante, and the stork pre-roost at Los Lances is a bill-clattering crowd.
• White storks bill-clattering on the Chellah walls, RabatMorocco · Breeding colony (storks, herons…) · peak 1 Feb–30 AprDozens of pairs bill-clattering with heads thrown back on the minaret and the medieval walls, wings thumping on landing, and below them the cattle egret roost and the Bou Regreg valley.
• Spring raptor & stork passage over the Strait — Jbel MoussaMorocco · Migration · peak 10 Mar–30 AprMostly a visual event: kettles of hundreds of kites and storks spilling off the Spanish side and gaining height over Belyounech. Sound is the wind, bill-clattering storks on the ground, griffons' rasping wing-noise overhead and the reintroduced griffon colony's grunts on the cliffs.

More: every animal and kind · what is on in October