Smithsonian Institution on Storks
17 May 6:15 a.m. (Ray) (Tower view, b&w) Momma stood up. Still four eggs there. Deb from Polish Genius must have been talking about another nest. Momma “stirred” the four eggs a bit with her beak, and then sat back down. No rain today, very windy though.
1:30 p.m. (Ray) (Low view, color) Momma resting on nest. Nice day
2:50 p.m. – (Ray) Papa’s gone again. Unless, of course, he’s doing nest duty now. I’ll have to figure out a quick way of identifying between the two of them.
8:39 p.m. (Jack) They* are both asleep.
18 May 12:01 a.m. (Ray) Papa is up, preening, and nibbling and even preened the sound asleep Momma for a bit. Quite dark (but they are illuminated somehow) and no rain.
2:00 p.m. (Debbie) I mentioned to my husband how the image goes to B&W sometimes and he thinks that's the server (?) doing it to save bandwidth because there are so many people watching the storks. I don't know.
2:45 p.m. (Debbie) The storks take turns sitting on the eggs. Maybe you've missed the changing of the guard. If you watch closely, and maybe for a few minutes, when one flies into the nest he/she eventually sits on the eggs while the other parent lies off for food. Mom and Dad both sit
5:10 p.m. (Ray) Shadows seem to indicate that the camera is aimed towards the north.
6:35 p.m. (Ray) Mom (?) stood up and nudged the four eggs still in nest; then soon after, a change to a really tight closeup shot shot of “Mom’s” head
7:52 p.m. (Ray) Another closeup of Mom. I bet that the “experts” are expecting the hatch to happen imminently so they have repositioned the camera or put a new lens on it. That’s probably why there was the “black time” this morning when they made the lens change.
9:49 p.m. (Ray) Both home, Mom abed, Pa standing on one leg again, on the alert for something or another. I don’t think I have ever seen both of them sitting down at the same time.
May 19, approx. 1:30 a.m., Debbie Greenlee wrote:
DIFFERENT NEST
As of yesterday two of the 5 eggs had hatched in this nest located in Przygodzice, near Ostro~w Wielkopolski, a little farther north than where the other camera is located (Katowice) : http://www.bociany.ec.pl/
This camera is more like the web cams we're used to. The picture updates every few seconds and there's no sound. However, at about 11:00 p.m. stork time the parents changed positions and I didn't see any eggs or babies. It could just be that the camera is using infrared- or is it?
May 19 5:45 a.m. (Ray) Mom? in nest, kinda sitting up; Pa out foraging or “straying.” Nice day.
7:10 a.m. (Ray) Mom? still lying in nest; nipping at nest, eating a bit from bugs around her? Then she stood up and started using her beak to turn over the soil around the “still” four eggs. Eating a bit and shuffling the eggs a bit for a couple of minutes. I wonder if they eat “twigs” as roughage to help digest the frogs, snakes, etc. that apparently is their normal diet?
8:27 a.m. (Ray) I think Dad, who has more black on the tail feathers, is now perching on the eggs.
12:20 p.m. (Ray) I could see four eggs still when Mom? stood up to take a dump. Sunny Day. Hear the sound of someone hammering in the background. Not now, but on other occasions, it sounds like construction equipment is operating nearby.
When you can see the tower in the background, note that this nest is fairly high up on some large, but not very high, hill. You can see a wide valley/plain in the background.
If it is “Ustron”, I see on a link on the main page that it is in Silesia!
Ustroń is a health resort town in southern Poland. It is situated in the Silesian Voivodeship (since 1999), having previously been in Bielsko-Biała Voivodeship (1975-1998). It is also the home of the Museum of Metallurgy. The Równica and Czantoria mountains are nearby and hikable from the city center.
Stork University!, Poland: http://www.bociany.edu.pl/ (That’s it!)
Four Polish and a whole slug of German, Austrian & ? Stork Cams: http://www.bocianyonline.pl/kamery.html
Chyby http://www.bociany.kalinski.pl/ This is the one with the chat ability, but the image still doesn’t work.
This is also a good one; no chat, though.
May 19 , 2007 (Debbie)
The stork parents in Przygodice now have 3 babies.
If you go to this page: http://www.bociany.edu.pl/ and click on the words under the film (look for TV) it brings up a
separate page with the same stork "movie". Near the bottom right corner are 3 little symbols. Click on the one in the middle (it's an arrow pointing to the top right of the screen). The film will enlarge but be fuzzy. To get rid of the big picture hit ESCAPE on your keyboard.
May 19, 2007 5:35 p.m stork time (Debbie)
Lots of sirens! Must be a big accident or fire. I think Ustron~ in old woj. Bielsko-Bial~a in southern Poland is a good sized town because little villages don't have that kind of emergency "equipment." It's also a gmina which means it would be a little larger than most villages anyway.
(Ray) I think I saw someplace that its population is 15,000 or so. Big Metallurgy museum nearby. Must be a mining area.
Stork not phased by the noise. Pretty windy again. I hope some eggs hatch. If you listen carefully you can tell it's a Saturday because of the laughter of children. I also heard several gun shots? If they had screen doors in Poland I'd say it could have been someone slamming a screen door really hard. Tomorrow morning (in Poland) you will here church bells.
Here is a link to a map which shows the location of Ustron~ :
Ustron Stork Nest
Maybe 100 km (66 miles) sw from Krakow, probably 80km from Wadowice.
On the Czech border (12 km) and Slovak border 80 km or so.
once you get in real close. Here are the coordinates: N = 49°43'10'' = 49,71944° = 205801 m
E = 18°49'07,8'' = 18,81884° = 486946 m
6:10 p.m stork time. Dad came home and there was quite a discussion between mom and dad! Still only four eggs. Mom (?) flew off. I agree with you Ray. I think dad has more black feathers than mom.
6:35 p.m. (Jack) Sitting down, facing East cleaning up the house.
9:00 p.m. (Ray) Ma & Pa exchange sitting duties; getting dark (I just got back after 7 hours of things to do; I was not sleeping, Jack!)
9:10 p.m. (Ray) How come Pa loves to stand on one leg while he preens and readies himself for his extra-marital excursions?
May 20 1:00 a.m. (Jack) Changing of the guard observed, one or the other is now over the eggs they seem to be very fond of.
3:23 a.m. (Ray) Yeah, they seem to be aware that something is going to happen soon. This is getting exciting.
How do you suppose they sleep standing up? On one leg often? A few hours ago I noticed that they were both sitting down, very romantic-like. It’s getting near dawn.
3:50 a.m. (Ray) The Old Man is up preening still. Dawn is seen in the background. Let this be the Day!
4:45 a.m. (Ray) Screen switched to closeup in color
4:55 a.m. (Ray) Still four eggs! Mom stood up to stir them around a bit. Maybe it’s like “plumping up a pillow when you are trying to sleep.” I suppose trying to sleep on top of four eggs, not wanting to break them, and I suppose they move a bit, having living chicks inside ever and ever getting close to hatching, is somewhat uncomfortable. Whatever, she’s back down now. To bed for me.
1:00 p.m. (Ray) Still four eggs; another beautiful day. Lots of noise in the background, like construction equipment; but I can’t believe that they would work on Sunday! Ah HAAAAA. It’s not construction equipment, it’s a guy down below the nest pushing a hand power mower; I guess that’s OK on Sundays. I wonder if they had those under the “Commies?” I missed the Mass Bells; I may have to remember to be up at 11:00 or so on Sunday morning.
Pa’s back. Little chattering of “hellos.” Ma stands up, and 30 seconds later, Pa plunks himself down for the afternoon nesting duties.
Ma does a little “grooming” (Do you suppose she has a boyfriend?), running a beak through her feathers, stands on the edge of the nest, and then without even so much as a “See you later” chattering of bills, off she heads towards the north. That must be the location of “water.” Then a minute or so later, at 1:15 p.m., Pa chatters, “Hey, where’d she go?” Then a bit of dog barking as if someone walked by with their dog on a leash and the nest’s protector warned him off. I saw a big white dog one day running lose beneath the nest.
Hey, here’s a great German site to watch while we’re waiting for the hatch in Poland.
http://www.storchennest.de/en/index_index.php If you can read German, this link has a live “chat” link so you can eavesdrop on the questions and observations of other viewers. You probably can register and comment yourself, too.
http://www.storchennest.de/en/index_live-video.html
German Stork Log (in English): http://www.storchennest.de/en/aktuelles/index_aktuelles.html They haven’t been keeping it up since early May. But there are some very interesting comments if you want to learn more about storks.
4:45 p.m. (Ray) pa? Stands up and shuffles the four eggs around a bit, maybe verifying that there still are four live embryos in them. If one had died, we might see that egg removed from the nest. Just guessing here
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