Storks prosper in old Croat marshland village

by Zoran Radosavljevic,

CIGOC, Croatia, (Reuters) If storks were meant to bring babies, they obviously failed in this picturesque village.

Its quaint oakwood houses are dilapidated and its population is steadily ageing while the tall white birds nesting on rooftops have prospered, helped by environmentalists and European Union funds.

Cigoc, some 100 km (60 miles) southeast of Zagreb, was proclaimed the first European Village of Storks in 1994, when the number of storks peaked at 250, compared to about a hundred, mostly elderly, villagers.

"We can boast the highest number of young birds in Europe, on average six per nest," said Niksa Ravlic, a young official at the local information centre.

Not so with humans, despite successful efforts to revive tradition and tourism. "There are fewer and fewer children here, but storks are really clinging to this village," he said.

A large number of rural areas in the former Yugoslav republic have seen a decline in population during 50 years of communist rule as farmers sought an easier life in towns or went to work abroad, attracted by hard currency wages.

Cigoc lies on the marshlands between the Lonja and the Sava rivers. Mosquitoes are unbearable in the summer, but spring is filled with lush vegetation and the endless chirping of birds. It has about 70 old houses, built of dark oak planks with small flower-decorated windows. Some fences have life-sized stork statues. The EU's Life project has gone a long way towards preserving the village as an oasis of peace.

Most houses have stork nests, some weighing up to one ton, perched on top, with a stork couple busily repairing what had been damaged during the winter. The storks go about their business indifferent to all human activity below.

"The storks simply love it here. They have plenty of food - snakes, insects, frogs - right next to the village so they don't have to fly far to feed the young," Ravlic said. While in other parts of Europe storks seek to build nests away from humans, in trees or cliffs, white storks here use primarily chimneys, roofs, lamp posts and electricity or telephone poles.

"They live in peaceful co-existence with humans. In the past having storks was considered a good luck sign, meaning a lot of children, who were people's greatest wealth at the time and a handy source of labour when they grew up," Ravlic said. The storks spend every winter in South Africa, flying almost 6,000 miles twice a year. Couples return to the same nest every spring to have their young.

Ante Poturica, an elderly farmer, has devoted a lot of his spare time to observing storks' habits. He is proud to explain to any willing visitor how storks returning in spring descend on their nest.

"They know from afar which one is theirs. When they come close, they fly high in the air and then slowly descend in circles with their legs outstretched," he said, his hands flailing in the air in imitation of the big birds. His wife Marija said they had grown so accustomed to storks that they could hardly imagine their lives without them.

"They have been here since time immemorial. We know they come back around St Joseph's Day (March 19), and if they are not there we start worrying, like 'What is taking them so long this year?" she said, while hanging clothes out to dry in her yard. This year, the storks were indeed late in returning, probably due to the long winter. Only about 40 have come back so far, and almost every return was noted and welcomed by the villagers.

"But they can also be a nuisance. Sometimes we can't get to sleep all night because they keep clattering with their beaks up on the roof. Or sometimes they grab something from the yard to reinforce the nest," said Poturica. Storks have no vocal chords and the distinctive beak clatter is the only sound they make.

Tourists who flock here in the summer can enjoy them from close range. "Storks are probably the only big birds you can come close to and watch without scaring them away," said Ravlic.