An interesting thing to me this year is that the storks arrived completely silent. Those of you who have followed the group may remember that about 2 years ago, someone called me on the carpet because someone researched the fact that storks do not have voices. However, what happens is that until about the age of one year, storks can make noises. As they mature towards being able to breed, they lose their voice. They can only make a clacking noise with their beaks. Normally when the young storks arrive from last year’s fledglings, you can hear them overhead because they are not old enough to mate, and they still have their voice. This was not the case for 2021. There have been no young calling storks overhead in this season. What does that tell you? The chicks were older than normal, and there should be a bumper crop of fledglings for this year!
