Nest register · Dainiai, Šiauliai
Poles, water towers and the storks that come back to them.
One driver's register of white-stork nests on farm poles and old water towers around Šiauliai: arrival dates, chick counts in June, platforms and departures.
Counting since202147 nest sites · one loop · 70 km
| Season | Occupied HPa | With young HPm | Young counted JZG |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 41 | 33 | 81 |
| 2022 | 43 | 36 | 92 |
| 2023 | 42 | 30 | 64cold rain mid-June |
| 2024 | 44 | 37 | 95 |
| 2025 | 45 | 35 | 86 |
| 2026 | 46 | 38 | 97most young yet |
The stork year on the loop
- Arrival and nest fightslate March to early April
- Sitting on eggslate April to late May
- Chicks lying flatlate May to mid-June
- Chicks standing: the countlast week of June
- First flightsmid-July to early August
- Gathering, then goneAugust to early September
First stork on the loop: between 22 March and 2 April in every season so far. Last stork: between 28 August and 5 September.
Register entries, along the road
Oldest entry at the roundabout, newest at the far end. Each post opens the full entry.
- Entry 01 · Method
The loop and the register: how I count stork nests north of Šiauliai
How the nest loop is driven, how each nest gets its number, what the international census codes mean, and why the same roads in the same order matter. - Entry 02 · Spring
Arrival week: late March mornings and the first storks on the loop
First arrival dates on the loop since 2021, why males come back before females, snow on the nests in April, and what storks eat before the frogs wake up. - Entry 03 · Summer
Counting stork chicks in June without climbing anything
When stork chicks become countable from the road, how cold rain and baler twine change the numbers, and the rules I keep so that counting never costs a chick. - Entry 04 · Nests
Platforms, water towers and the last storks of August
Why the loop's storks nest on poles and old farm water towers, what a nest platform does, the nest that fell, and how the birds gather and leave in late summer.
How I watch
- Count from the car or the field track, never from under the pole.
- Same loop, same direction, same week of June every year.
- An unsure count is written down as unsure.
- Nobody's yard and nobody's gate without asking first.
Why a register
I drive the same loop of district roads around Šiauliai every spring and summer and write down every stork nest on it, occupied or not, so that one year can be laid honestly beside the next.