Counting stork chicks in June without climbing anything

Stop 1

When a chick becomes countable

Stork eggs hatch a day or two apart, and for the first two or three weeks the chicks are small grey-white lumps lying flat in the cup, invisible from any road. They begin to show their heads above the rim at about three weeks, and by four or five weeks they stand and flap. That puts the useful count on the loop in the last week of June and the first days of July. Earlier than that I am counting guesses, and much later the first young are already making short hops to the next pole.

The register takes two counts. The first is the last full drive of June, made in the morning, with every nest watched for at least five minutes. The second is a repeat a week later for any nest where the first count was uncertain. The number that goes into the season total is the higher of the two, since chicks do not appear from nowhere but are very good at hiding behind each other, and a chick seen once for certain is a chick that was there.

Stop 2

How the count goes wrong

Most errors come from chicks lying down. A nest with three standing chicks and a fourth lying flat in the shade reads as three from the road, and on hot afternoons all of them may be flat at once. Water tower nests are the hardest, because from the ground you see only the rim and the bills, so these get the scope and the most time. Pole nests beside the road are the easiest and the riskiest, because it is tempting to stop right underneath.

The other trap is the adults. By July a half-grown chick is nearly the size of its parent, and at a distance, against the light, a red bill looks dark and a dark bill looks red. The check that works is bill colour in good light: blackish for the young, bright red for the adults, with the young bills only starting to redden at the base by the time they fly. When I am still unsure, the count goes in with a question mark and the nest gets its second visit.

• Pull fully off the road, onto a field track where there is one
• Stay in the car with the engine off and the window down
• Count heads, then count bills, then count both again
• Note which adults are present, and whether anything is lying flat
• Leave after five minutes, or ten if the count is still unsure

Stop 3

Weather, and the June that rained

The numbers in the register swing with the weather more than with anything else. Young chicks cannot keep themselves warm once their down is soaked, and a cold, rainy spell in the first half of June, when many of them are only two or three weeks old, kills them in the nest. In 2023 a week of cold rain arrived in the middle of the month, and the late June count found sixty-four young across the loop, against ninety-two the year before.

Hot, dry summers bring a different problem. When the meadows dry out, frogs and earthworms get harder to find, and parents sometimes reduce the brood themselves by pushing out the weakest chick. It is hard to watch the first time, and the register records it without comment. It is how storks match the number of mouths in the nest to the food in the fields, and the chicks that remain usually fledge well, which is some comfort on the drive home.

Stop 4

Baler twine and other hazards

Storks line their nests with whatever soft material they can find, and in farm country that includes plastic baler twine. Chicks get their legs tangled in it, and a loop tightening round a growing leg can cripple or kill. From the road the only sign is a chick standing oddly or not standing at all. When I have seen that, the register notes it and I pass the location on to people qualified to deal with it, which can mean someone with the right equipment going up in the autumn, once the birds have gone, to clear the nest.

The most useful thing anybody reading this can do is simpler. If you farm or keep a garden near a stork nest, cut old twine into short pieces and put it in a closed bin rather than leaving it lying around the yard. The farms on the loop are generally better at this than they were a few years ago, and I have mentioned twine at more than one farm gate, always politely and always after asking whether I may count the nest from the lane.

Stop 5

Rules for June

June is when I am strictest with myself. I never stop directly under a nest, never use the horn, and never get out of the car within a hundred metres of a pole with small chicks on it. In cold or rainy weather I skip the drive altogether, because an adult that stands up to look at me is an adult that is not keeping its chicks warm. A missed count can be made up a few days later. A chilled chick cannot be made up at all.

The results are worth the wait. There is a morning in late June when I stop near the water tower at N27, set up the scope and see four heads in a row above the rim, bills open, waiting. Four is a lot for a stork nest. It happened there in 2024 and again in 2026, the year the late June count reached ninety-seven young across the loop, the most in the register. Both times I sat in the car for the full ten minutes to be sure, and then for another five because I wanted to.