SATELLITE TRACKING OF A WHITE STORK FROM ITALY TO MOROCCO

Two young White Storks were tracked by satellite during a part of thei r first migratory journey from the nest colony (settled in Piedmont, N W Italy) to the wintering ground in Western Africa. Both birds left we stward, but only one of the two birds provided reliable data which all owed the reconstruction of its migratory route along the coasts of Fra nce and Spain up to Morocco. A new aspect of the journey is that the b ird did nor pass from Europe to Africa at Gibraltar, the storks' known western route. Despite the storks' tendency to avoid flying over larg e stretches of sea, the tracked bird crossed the Alboran sea from De G ata Cape (Spain) to Tres Forcas Cape (Morocco), thus flying about 120 km over the open sea. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.