The stork nest at the Vlaha has been deserted for days, and it is now safe to say that all the members of the stork family nesting here have left.
Just as in other years, this year they didn't leave the nest all at once. The first to leave the nest was one of this year's stroklings, which disappeared on 25 July. His siblings followed on the 29th of July. The parents then rested for a few days afterwards, preparing for the long journey. Once again, Leske was the first to leave. She was last seen in the nest at 6:47 am on 8 August. Miska kept watch over the family den alone for another ten days. He left at 9:30 on the 18th.
The male stork laid quietly low on the evening of 11 August, when a flock of about 100 storks spent the night in the village and the nest was full of passing visitors. It later emerged that not one but three members of the migrating stork flock had bad enough luck to have the village as their lives final destination. They were electrocuted on a medium-voltage electricity pole, and the carcass of a young stork found that evening was handed over to the Bábes-Bolyai University for scientific purposes the following day. The next morning, an injured stork was also found in the village, which was unable to continue flying with the flock. It was handed over to the veterinary hospital of the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine in Cluj-Napoca. Days later, the carcass of another stork - now decaying - was found. This one had been electrocuted on the same medium-voltage electricity pole as the other one. We trust in the fact that such tragedies will not occur to our storks.
This year's stork monitoring program was supported by the Cluj County Council.
The project staff were:
Journalist Árpád Gazda, neighbour of the nest, author of the news and photos,
Dr. Zoltán D. Szabó, biologist,
Tímea Laslavic, translator, blogger, translator of the news into Romanian,
Caoimhe Dowling and Flóra Gazda, translator of the news into english,
Lehel Lázár, developer of the site,
Zsolt Okos, expert in broadcasting and network issues,
all of them volunteers for the stork monitoring program.
We look forward to seeing you again in March 2024!