Storks in Poland

Who would have thought that white storks and their nests would be a way that Poland and the U.S. differ? I am always looking for ways that Poland and the U.S. are similar and for ways that they are different. I found out about storks while I thought I was researching something else. A problem with doing family history is that “one thing leads to another” so I can end up working on something far from my initial goal. I have been sharing information about Uhniv (where the Kaszucki family came from) and was almost wrapped up with that. I figured that people were starting to get tired of the information about this city but I knew that my Mom’s birthday is coming up as well as the birthday of a new relative that none of us had met so things should get a little more interesting. I was following a final lead on the area and stumbled across someone’s blog. He wrote about traveling by bus from Rawa Ruska and going over the border from Poland to Ukraine on his way to Uhniv. This is how he described it: “The road to Uhniv is close to the Polish border. First we pass vast wheat fields. Harvest has begun. Trucks are waiting to be loaded. Storks walk behind tractors and harvesters. Then we pass dense forests.” He then describes what he sees in the town including a church and synagogue in ruins, a small museum and a factory and then reports that, “A stork has settled on a lamppost and flies up as I get closer.” Because storks are nearly nonexistent in North America, I notice the storks in his story but I let it go.https://vanishedworld.blog/2014/08/03/in-the-borderland/#more-1247 Then today on my Facebook page, there is a story about cleaning the nests of storks in Poland before they migrate back in the Spring. Apparently hundreds of nests will be spruced up. https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7789/Artykul/2655718?fbclid=IwAR0fb_40Ia0-KL5ARq9wgiLAyx71os4_954vNnjeHoDES4V06Lud2CWv43s So I have never thought about storks in Poland and now I see two references to them in one week. Now, I am interested so I look for more information and find out that Poland has 50,000 storks, about 20% of the worldwide stork population. They are very big with a 10 foot wingspan and weighing up to 18 pounds. The nests are large, up to six feet in diameter and ten feet in depth. They are symbols of good fortune and their return in the spring signals the end of a long winter, just like the return of the robin does for us in Michigan. While also migratory, the robin though is only about 3 ounces in weight and has a wingspan of 12 to 18 inches. I hope someday I get to see the storks in Poland! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stork https://phys.org/news/2013-08-poland-stork-friend.html#:~:text=Storks%20sit%20in%20their%20nests,summer%2C%20according%20to%20local%20officials.&text=Poland%20as%20a%20whole%20sees,percent%20of%20the%20world's%20population https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/travel/poland-storks.html