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THE WILSON JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY • Vol 124, No. 2, June 2012 
TABLE 2. Nest locality preferences of White Storks in western Turkey. 
Nesl location 
Building 
Tree 
Electricity pylons 
Totals 
Town n (column %) _ Village n (column < 5-) Total n (column %) 
13(68.4) 7 (25.9) 20(43.5) 
4 (2Li) 3(11.1) 7(15.2) 
2(10.5) 17(63.0) 19(413) 
19 < 4l - 3 > 27 (58.7) 46 (100.0) 
Each nest location category (building, tree. E. pylon, is compared to the total of others due to small sample sizes. 
Chi-square /" 
0.0042 
0.4244 
0.0004 
ical variables of the breeding season. The number 
of breeding pairs was positively correlated with 
total (r s = 0.470, P = 0.042) and maximum 
precipitation (r, = 0.550, P = 0.015) only in 
April. Breeding success and number of fledglings 
were not correlated with any of ihe monthly 
meteorological variables. 
The number of breeding pairs was positively 
correlated with the total area of crop fields (r. = 
0.619, P = 0.014, n = 15) and negatively 
correlated with fruit production (r v = —0.870, 
P < 0.001). Breeding success was negatively 
correlated with the total area of crop fields (r = 
-0.657. P = 0.008). 
DISCUSSION 
Altitude and distance to the nearest river 
strongly influenced nest site selection of White 
Storks and had an important role in affecting the 
pattern of abundance in our study area similar to 
research in Poland (Nowakowski 2003,2006- The 
distance covered during foraging trips is important 
in affecting provisioning of nestlings (Jolist eral. 
2001). Flight behavior studies for some bin!' of 
prey during the breeding season strongly indicate 
that parents balance energy consumption and 
demands of nestlings (Hedenstrom et al. 1999, 
Rosen and Hedenstrom 2002). Energy demands of 
nestlings and parents are high and parents have lo 
commute several times per day between the nesting 
site and foraging areas to feed their chicks (Damp 
and Simmons 1977). Foraging trips of White 
Storks are known to not exceed a radius of 5 km 
around the nest (Johst et al. 2001). Balancing 
energy demands among parents and nestlings under 
unfavorable conditions is important: White Storks 
may control intra-brood food distribution which 
enables them to invest more in larger siblings or to 
control the number of young (Djerdali et al. 2010), 
There was no relationship with distance to the 
<u 
-Q 
E 
Year 
FIG. 3. 
Town, northwestern Turkey throu ehm' 1 " 1 .' te S ‘" rk nests - breeding pairs (active nests), and fledglings in Sindirg 
Of observed increase in number of electricitvnvl'^ 3 ^ i!*^ lineS represent the fitted cubic regression curves (* = t' mm ' 
pyions in the study area). 
