At a vast dump near Madrid, hundreds of white storks search among the piles of colorful rubbish bags for food crumbs while dodging garbage trucks.
Historically, the long-legged birds would fly from all over Europe to African pastures during the winter before returning in the spring.
But an increasing number of storks are skipping this difficult voyage and staying in Spain for the winter because of the plentiful food found in landfills and the warmer climate.
Carlos Pinto, a sanitation worker at a landfill in Pinto, about 18 miles south of Madrid, stated, “For us they are part of the scenery.”
He continued, saying that the dump receives between 200 and 300 tonnes of food waste every day and that the storks instantly fly to areas “where there is new garbage.”
This image can be seen all over Spain, as many storks choose to build their nests close to the landfills where they spend the entire year.
White storks have turned into a symbol of the town of Alcala de Henares, the birthplace of “Don Quixote” author Miguel de Cervantes, which is close to Madrid.
Almudena Soriano, the town’s veterinarian, declared that storks could be seen everywhere.
The bell towers of the Alcala are crowned with stork nests, and the community may hear the clattering sound their long beaks make.
Only ten stork nests were found in the town in 1970. Up to 300 storks were living in 109 nests, which was a more than tenfold increase from the census of 2021.
According to Soriano, “approximately 70% of storks no longer migrate” to Africa, primarily due to the readily accessible food they may find in landfills in Spain.
This enables them to escape the perilous crossing of the nine-mile-long Strait of Gibraltar, which separates Spain from Morocco but is frequently buffeted by severe winds.
“Many perish en route.” Adult storks who have already traveled there do not wish to do so again, according to Soriano.
And because they travel around in search of food, an open dump serves as an unlimited banquet for them.
There is no longer a need to depart.
SEO Birdlife’s 2020 census revealed 36,217 white storks in Spain.
Previously, Spain served only as a pit stop on the birds’ annual migration to Africa, but now, according to the NGO, a sizable number of white storks winter there.
This applies to storks born both in Spain and in northern European countries like Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands.
While some storks spend their entire lives in Spain, others migrate back to northern Europe each winter.
According to SEO Birdlife scientist Blas Molina, young storks still have the urge to migrate to Africa, but they do so alone.
The main reason storks have ceased migrating, according to the NGO, is the easy access to food in landfills, but it is also ‘possibly due to propensity towards greater temperatures’ brought on by climate change.
According to Molina, adult storks are remaining ‘a little bit further north’ on the Iberian Peninsula than they were previously, where they had previously made pit stops in Extremadura in the southeast and Andalusia in the south.
He went on to say that the alteration in the stork’s migratory patterns is an obvious illustration of the “impact of human activities on biodiversity.”
In order to stop storks from ingesting plastic and other possibly dangerous materials, the municipality of Pinto is thinking about covering its garbage site.
If so, the storks might fly away.
Alcala closed its dump last year, but to make sure the storks had enough food and stayed in the town, they set up enormous feeding stations.
The plan seems to be working because the number of storks in the town has remained constant.