--- title: White storks: Ukraine's favourite birds and their journey to Africa — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «White storks: Ukraine's favourite birds and their journey to Africa», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: On top of a pole in a Ukrainian village sits a nest as wide as a kitchen table, and on it stands a whi --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / White storks: Ukraine's favourite bird… # White storks: Ukraine's favourite birds and their journey to Africa Lesson 375 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 18 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/0/) — On top of a pole in a Ukrainian village sits a nest as wide as a kitchen table, and on it stands a white bird with black wing edges and long red legs: a white stork, leleka, back from Africa for the spring. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/1/) — Storks come back to the same nest year after year and add new sticks, so old nests grow huge. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/2/) — Granny says a stork on the roof brings luck, and for many Ukrainians the stork stands for home and spring. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/3/) — Storks hardly have a voice; they greet each other by throwing their heads back and clattering their bills like a wooden toy. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/4/) — Both parents sit on the eggs and feed the chicks. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/5/) — In autumn they fly about 10,000 kilometres to Africa, soaring on rising warm air instead of flapping. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/6/) — Warm air hardly rises over cold sea, so Ukrainian storks go round the Black Sea, not across it. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/7/) — Stork nests are used year after year and grow huge, sometimes about 2 metres across; sparrows often live in the nest walls, and power companies build platforms on poles so nests do not touch the wires. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/8/) — The white stork, leleka in Ukrainian, stands for home and spring, and Ukraine has tens of thousands of pairs, one of the biggest numbers in Europe; old people say storks never nest by a house of quarrels. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/9/) — Babies grow inside their mothers; the stork that delivers babies is an old European tale, perhaps because storks live close to people and return to the same nest. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/10/) — White storks are almost silent and clatter their bills to greet each other, while chicks hiss and mew before they learn to clatter. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/11/) — Storks usually lay about 3 to 5 eggs, both parents take turns sitting on them, the chicks hatch after about a month and fly at about 2 months old. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/13/) — Storks soar on rising warm air called thermals, which hardly form over cold water, so soaring costs them far less energy than flapping. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/14/) — Ukrainian storks fly round the Black Sea through Turkey, the Middle East and Egypt to eastern and southern Africa, about 10,000 kilometres each way. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/15/) — In 1822 a stork in Germany was found with an African spear in its neck; it helped prove storks spend winter in Africa, when some people thought birds slept in mud all winter. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/16/) — Scientists put small GPS trackers on storks and found they use the same routes as their parents and stop at the same places. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/17/) — Some storks from Spain and Portugal now stay all winter and eat at rubbish dumps instead of flying to Africa. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/375-white-storks-ukraine-s-favourite-birds-and-their-journey-to-africa/19/) — The shy black stork, a cousin, hides in deep forests near streams. - ← previous: [Ukraine's waters: Danube delta pelicans, Black Sea dolphins, sturgeon and gobies](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/374-ukraine-s-waters-danube-delta-pelicans-black-sea-dolphins-sturgeon-and-gobies/) - next →: [The Chornobyl zone: how wild animals came back, and what is still argued](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/376-the-chornobyl-zone-how-wild-animals-came-back-and-what-is-still-argued/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)