Since 1999, Natuurpunt (BirdLife in Belgium) is tracking migrating White Stork Ciconia ciconia on their route to Spain and West Africa. Thanks to the support of the partners of ‘Storks without Borders’, which include the animal park Planckendael, the Ministry of the Flemish Government and provinciaal Natuurpark Zwin we already followed 25 storks on their migration route. Satellite tracking data give us a detailed picture of the migration route, stopover sites, potential bottleneck areas and threats. We can still track one bird, an adult male, for its 5th autumn migration. On the 30th August 2010 he covered 429 km in one day through central France. This is a spectacular result as storks normally cover 150 to 200 km on the western route across Europe.
