The Amur region has a very diverse flora and fauna. Rare plants grow here: black birch, wild rosemary, lily of the valley; rare animals live: Amur tiger, black stork, grouse grouse, Japanese crane, mandarin duck, Far Eastern white stork.

The mass of the egg of this bird is 115 grams, and the mass of the bird itself is 3 kilograms. The flight speed is 41 km/h, while making 2 strokes per second. The flight path length is 10,000 kilometers. On average they live up to 20 years, the longest life expectancy is 70 years...

A pair of Far Eastern storks made a nest on a power line support that crosses the swampy floodplain of the Zeya River near the village of Vladimirovka. Every spring, storks flew to their nest.

In the first days after arrival, it was possible to see birds on the nest only in the morning or closer to dusk. After several days, the storks began to repair the nest. They carried thick dry branches, collecting them hundreds of meters from the nest; the stork laid them along the edge of the nest. She threw out rotten branches from the nest.

Storks are silent birds, but by the time repairs to the nest are completed, the male is transformed: in fits of passion, he throws his head back and, often clicking his beak, emits long, dull trills.

And how much attention he pays to his girlfriend! Either he picks up the feathers on her neck with his beak, then he stands in front of her, fluffing the feathers on his chest and raising his head high, nodding his beak for a long time, showing with all his appearance that a more beautiful and stronger stork cannot be found.

Married couples among storks are permanent, the partners know each other well. Love passions do not boil for long, and after a week the stork sits on the nest to warm her eggs. A brooding bird is difficult to see. The high sides of the nest hide it. When a person approaches, she presses herself tighter into the nest, lowers her head and freezes. One can only guess what is going on in the bird’s soul. Storks do not trust man; he has shot at them too often. But the maternal instinct is stronger, and the bird does not leave the nest.

With the birth of chicks, parents have a lot of worries. Feed a brood of 2, 3, or even 4 chicks. It's good if there are a lot of frogs and fish. But if the summer is dry, then trouble happens in stork families. Hungry chicks do not gain weight and become weaker. Then the adult birds throw out the frailest chick, or even two, from the nest. Having freed themselves from an unhealthy chick, storks create the opportunity to raise, although not numerous, but viable offspring.

Long before leaving the nest, the chicks, preparing for flight, standing on the edge of the nest, flap their wings for a long time. This is still training, but the long-awaited moment is coming. The parents stop feeding the chicks and walk around the nest. And then one of the storks stands on the edge of the nest, spreads its wings, makes several strokes and, jumping, rushes down. Alternating between awkward flapping of its wings and short gliding, the stork, having flown several tens of meters, descends and, often losing its balance, plops down on the ground.

For several more weeks, the stork family stays in the area of ​​the nest, gradually expanding its habitat. Before leaving for the winter, in mid-September, the stork family returns to their nest to say goodbye to their native places.

This went on for many years. But they built a bridge across Zeya and paved a road. Some of the reservoirs were drained, high places were plowed, and cows grazed near the nest. But the storks did not leave their habitual places. Every year they renovated the nest, hatched the chicks, taught them to fly, flew away for the winter and returned again.

The next spring everything was the same as always. Large areas around the nest were covered with low willow and hummocks. The then landowner decided to cut it all off with a bulldozer. When we arrived at the nest, the storks were no longer there. Not far from the support where the nest was, there was a bank of freshly cut tussocks, willow twigs and grass. Nobody thought about storks. No one spared the birds. In pursuit of cultivated areas, people forgot about them, and they left their native places forever!

In trying to expand our habitat, we forget that other living organisms live nearby. They also want to live and breed, but they have less and less space left for this.

The stork flies to its native places in the spring in the hope of breeding. But several reasons prevent the stork from raising it. The most important thing is the absence of tall trees. Storks are worried about people, especially hunters.

We must pay tribute to the Amur power engineers: several stork nests built on power lines have been used for breeding for several years now. This settlement is caused by the lack of suitable trees.

Repeated attempts have been made to install supports with different platforms. But storks do not want to settle on them.

Under the influence of annual fires, trees in the south of the region are in a painful state. The only way out is to take areas of the forest under the protection of the authorities, where storks could safely build nests.

There is only one way out - each nesting site needs to be regularly monitored. Only by joining forces will people be able to save storks!

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