SMALL GROUP TOURS IN FRANCE AND GERMANY
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The White Stork:
An Icon of Alsace, France
Majestic, Mythical, Magical
26-November-2025
Step into Alsace, France and everywhere you look, the majestic stork, or its image, will come into view. For centuries, its presence and likeness have been embraced by, and associated with, this region.
Majestic
Standing about 3 feet (1 meter) tall and having a wing span of at least 5 feet (155 cm) the white stork is distinguished not only by its size but also by its color. It has bright white plumage starkly contrasted with black wing tips and bright orange-red, skinny, long legs and orange-red, long beak. It’s a striking sight every time this beautiful bird comes into view.
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Why does the white stork make its home in Alsace, France? Alsace has just the right habitat for storks to thrive. The varying Alsatian landscape provides the food the stork likes to eat, and its villages provide many high and strong places to build its large nests.
According to the Storks in Motion research group (www.whitestork.org) “The white stork is a carnivore and consumes a wide range of animal prey. They take most of their food from the ground, among low vegetation and from shallow water…” “Common food items include insects, earthworms, amphibians, reptiles and small mammals. Less commonly they also eat bird eggs and young birds, fish, molluscs, crustaceans, and scorpions.“
Storks find this food in agricultural areas, grasslands, wet grasslands, meadows, wetlands and marshes. Alsace has all of these.
There is an expansive landscape of agricultural crops (vineyards, orchards, fields of cabbage, carrots, onions, hops and other agricultural products). In addition, wet grasslands, wetlands and marshes are formed adjacent to the Rhine river (which forms Alsace’s eastern border) and adjacent to the Ill River (a western tributary of the Rhine which flows from south of Colmar north to Strasbourg) and which itself has many tributaries coursing through the Alsatian landscape. Examples of these wet areas where storks readily find their food include: The Grand Ried, La Petite Carmague Alsacienne National Nature Reserve, and the Ill River Wetlands.
With a landscape providing a readily available food source, Alsace’s villages and trees provide great nesting spots for settling into domestic life. Storks build their nests high above the surrounding terrain, and this type of nesting is enabled by soaring church towers, high residential roofs, towering chimneys, tall trees and electrical poles and pylons. This blend of villages surrounded by terrain that contains its favored food, provides just the right habitat for storks to nest and thrive.​
Kaysersberg - Stork Nest on Tower
Bergheim - Stork Nest on Church Roof
Mittelwihr - Stork Nest
Stork Nest on Pole
Stork Nest on Electrical Pole
Because they are mostly monogamous throughout their lifespan of approximately 30 years, (per the Storks in Motion research site), and because both the male and female share responsibility for incubating the eggs and feeding the young after they hatch, storks have come to symbolize fidelity, loyalty, fertility, and good family life.
At what time of year might you see a stork soaring through the landscape or tending its brood in its nest? As early as February, at the end of winter and as the sunlight becomes stronger, white storks fly north from Africa into southern and central Europe, where they build a new nest, or return to an existing nest. They mate, raise their chicks, and spend the warmer months in Alsace before making the return flight to Africa in late August and early September.
Such a majestic bird also builds a grand nest ! Per the Storks in Motion research site, “Each nest measures 1 to 2 meters in depth (3 to 6.5 feet), 0.8 to 1.5 meter in diameter (2.6 to 5 feet) and 60 to 250 kg (132 to 551 lbs) in weight.” Such large nests are made out of sticks and are visible from great distances. Some nests have metal platforms visible below them that were intentionally placed there to encourage the storks to build a nest at that location. Per Storks in Motion, “nests are built by mating pairs”, “close to human habitation” and “may be used for several years”.
Mythical
As Alsace was once part of the Germanic Holy Roman Empire for centuries, the website of the “Écomusée d’Alsace” in Ungersheim, in Alsace, France refers to the role of storks in German mythology.
“In Germanic mythology, the stork was a sacred messenger, entrusted by the goddess Holda to deliver souls ready to be reborn. One legend told of a lake beneath Strasbourg Cathedral, where souls awaited to be fished out by a gnome in a silver boat before being delivered to storks.”
Not only featured in Germanic mythology, for centuries, storks have been featured in storytelling across many cultures. The ancient Greek storyteller and fabulist, Aesop, is credited with the fable “The Fox and the Stork” in which a fox plays a trick on a stork only to have the stork play the same trick on him (in some variations of the fable the stork is a crane). Aesop is also credited with the fable “The Frogs Who Desired a King” in which storks end up eating the frogs who foolishly wished for something they didn’t need and that worsened their circumstances.
Magical
It could be said that storks are also magical, as the most commonly known myth about the storks is that they are the ones who deliver babies to families. Danish storyteller and fairy tale writer, Hans Christian Andersen, further popularized the concept that storks deliver babies with his fairy tale “The Storks” in 1838. In this fairy tale, storks retrieve babies from water and deliver little baby brothers and sisters to well-behaved children while ill-behaved children receive a dead baby as result of their bad behavior. This colorful tale reinforced the importance of good behavior by children and gave parents an easy way to explain reproduction.
The Hansi Museum, Colmar, France, with Stork in Its Guild Sign
Stork in Guild Sign of Rohmer Boulangerie, Rosheim, France
For Alsace, France, the stork also came to symbolize pride in Alsatian culture and heritage, and a symbol of allegiance and patriotism to French Alsace when Alsace was part of Germany from 1871 to 1918 and again during World War II. The beloved Alsatian artist, Hansi, whose real name was Jean-Jacques Waltz, painted the stork in his many colorful and animated depictions of traditional Alsatian life. Colorful, beautiful, and at times playful, these scenes depicted a happy, sweet, beautiful and charming traditional Alsatian way of life, while in some cases also subtly making fun of the Germans. Due to copyright requirements, Hansi artwork can’t be reproduced here to show some examples, but they can be seen in the internet by searching “Hansi stork” images.
Hansi's reflections on the joy of the stork are found in an excerpt from Hansi’s book “My Village by Uncle Hansi” (“Mon Village par l’Oncle Hansi”):
"The greatest joy for the children of my village is the arrival of the storks. First, at the end of winter, an old grandmother stork arrives first; she lands for a few moments on the nest at the schoolhouse, then disappears. She has gone to report to the stork community that the nest is well maintained. The time for her return comes: the mother stork arrives to perch on the nest, while the father, to show himself off, performs a few glides. Then, from all the streets, from all the houses, long cries of joy rise up. Children come running from everywhere, the older ones, the middle ones, even the very young ones. They all gather together, the children hold hands, form a circle and begin to sing:
Stork, stork, you are lucky. Every year you pass through France;
Stork, stork, bring us back a little pioupiou in your beak."
“Pioupiou” was the French term for a young soldier in World War I. Today it is understood as a “baby”, perhaps also at that time as well, giving Hansi's words a double meaning.
Here are Hansi’s words in the original French in which the chant that the children sing rhymes:
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Cigogne, cigogne, t’as de la chance. Tous les ans tu passes en France ;
Cigogne, cigogne rapporte nous dans ton bec un petit pioupiou."
Conservation Efforts
After the 1960s and with an increase in industrialization and urbanization, Alsace noticed a marked decline in its stork population. Two Alsatian organizations of note are mentioned here that are working to restore and protect the habitat and life of the white stork in Alsace. Both organizations are open to visitors who can stop in and see the storks and their nests.
The first organization is the Écomusée d’Alsace in Ungersheim, France. Per its website: “In the 1970s, the stork population collapsed: only 9 pairs remained in 1974, compared to 148 in 1960. Faced with the crisis, Alsace took action. In 1976, the stork was declared a protected species under French law. In 1983, APRECIAL was founded.” (Association for the Protection and Reintroduction of Storks in Alsace-Lorraine)
Screenshot of the Écomusée d'Alsace Website: www.ecomusee.alsace
The Écomusée d’Alsace, near the southern end of the Alsace Wine Route, states it is France’s largest open-air museum. It is a museum where visitors experience traditional Alsatian life through the museum’s creation of a 20th century traditional Alsatian village. It includes eighty traditional Alsatian houses, farms and other buildings as well as providing a home to many types of animals found in the Alsatian countryside or on a farm.
Per its website: “The entire village and its surroundings….fields, forest, fallow land, and wetlands, covering 35 hectares” is designated as a refuge as part of the “League for the Protection of Birds.” The museum’s website states that it has the largest stork colony in Alsace, a colony of 48 nests in 2025! This museum is preserving Alsatian culture and heritage, of which storks are an important part of that effort. Learn more about this museum at its website here.
Additionally, NaturOparC in Hunawihr, along the Alsace Wine Route and on our bicycle route, and created in 1976, states via its website that it is a local “educational nature reserve” committed to the preservation and conservation of the stork population, as well as other endangered animal species in the area, and is committed to “raising awareness among the public” of the importance “of biodiversity” in Alsace.
Screenshot of the NaturOparC Website: www.naturoparc.fr
Founded in response to the decline in the Alsace stork population, NaturOparC’s website states: “While in the 1900s, storks numbered in the thousands in Alsace, there were only 2 wild pairs left in 1982! High voltage lines, drought and its hunting in Mali but also the use of very powerful pesticides aimed at eliminating locusts in this country constitute the major causes of the disappearance of the Stork.”
Open to visitors during spring, summer, and fall, its website states: “NaturOparC has created a diversity of natural spaces that respect existing heritage and are inspired by the natural habitats of the animals it shelters.” Its work has included: “controlled releases, banding, and public awareness campaigns.” As a result, “the population gradually recovered: 600 pairs in 2012, and nearly 1,400 today. While Alsace remains a historic stronghold, other regions like Charente-Maritime now host increasing numbers.” Learn more about NaturOparC at their website here.
Voilà, the iconic white stork of Alsace!