Storks get a birdy on nest of golf balls

Daily Telegraph ^ | May 29, 2005 | Katy Duke in Neumünster

[Cincinatus' Wife]

A pair of broody storks which tried to hatch golf balls pilfered from a German golf course have become parents after being given an abandoned egg to tend.

The baby stork, nicknamed Steven, is under guard at Golf Park Krogaspe, near Neumünster in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein.

As reported in The Sunday Telegraph last week, the would-be parents built their nest on the course, not high off the ground as is customary with storks. Because the chick is vulnerable to predators such as stoats or foxes, the nest will be raised in coming days.

"We need to get this little fellow off the ground as soon as possible, because he is at risk and it would be really horrible if Steven got nabbed by a stoat," said Chris Parker, 53, the British owner of the course. "We are building a special contraption, a bit like wooden scaffolding.

"In a couple of days, when the experts tell me Steven's old enough, we're going to shift the entire nest on to the top where he can be safe."

The storks originally stole so many balls that the first nest they built, on the fourth green, overflowed.

Georg Fiedler, a stork expert with the German Nature Preservation Association, thinks that the birds might have lost their original nest, possibly to another pair. "I believe that, driven by a remarkable parental urge, they tried to hatch golf balls," he said.

Storks are protective of their young, but there is a small risk that the parents might reject Steven once the nest is moved. However, Mr Fiedler believes that the gamble is worth taking.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

A pair of storks sit on a nest in the middle of a golf course in the northern German village of Krogaspe May 20, 2005. The birds have gathered balls from the golf course to fill their nest thinking that the 'eggs' will hatch into their offspring. Due to the help of bird expert Georg Fiedler, the storks are now hatching a real egg from another bird which died. REUTERS/Christian Charisius

One of the 2,900 stork nests on electricity pylons in Vilnius. The nests weigh 300-500 kilogrammes and can cause power cuts. The white stork is one of the most protected birds in the European Union, and their recently-acquired EU membership obliges Lithuania to solve the problems of storks nesting on high-voltage electricity pylons. (AFP/Stepas Butan)

[Samwise]

I'll see your duck and raise you a stork.

[johnny7]

Bird-brained... perhaps?

[snippy_about_it]

LOL. They seem awfully huge birds to sit on little golf balls. The size of that nest on the pole is amazing.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Birdbrained indeed!

Just like the EU!

[GVnana]

I have to wonder about the instincts of these storks. Are they sitting on golf balls because they forgot how, or are they just the especially nurturing type?

[LizardQueen]

Because the chick is vulnerable to predators such as stoats or foxes, the nest will be raised in coming days. "We need to get this little fellow off the ground as soon as possible, because he is at risk and it would be really horrible if Steven got nabbed by a stoat," said Chris Parker, 53, the British owner of the course.

What's a stoat? I thought it was some sort of wild pig, or baby pig, but that doesn't make sense for pigs to be on the golf course...

LQ

[Melinda in TN]

I had a laying hen that sat on a nest of Christmas tree balls one Spring. She found them in the barn loft where I stored them for the off season. When I discovered the problem I begged some fertile eggs from a neighbor. The bad thing was they were duck eggs. It didn't matter to her that the new babies looked funny but she nearly had a heart attack the first time they jumped in the pond.

[GVnana]

she nearly had a heart attack the first time they jumped in the pond

LOL! That is a great story.

[mewzilla]

Bird-brained... perhaps?

Not compared to some of the human parents I have the misfortune of knowing...