When migrating between Europe and Africa, it avoids crossing the Mediterranean Sea and detours via the Levant in the east or the Strait of Gibraltar in the west, because the air thermals on which it depends for soaring do not form over water.

It benefited from human activities during the Middle Ages as woodland was cleared, but changes in farming methods and industrialisation saw it decline and disappear from parts of Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Conservation and reintroduction programs across Europe have resulted in the white stork resuming breeding in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

[19] By the time it fledges, the juvenile bird's plumage is similar to that of the adult, though its black feathers are often tinged with brown, and its beak and legs are a duller brownish-red or orange.

[24] The great white pelican has short legs which do not extend beyond its tail, and it flies with its neck retracted, keeping its head near to its stocky body, giving it a different flight profile.

[33][34] In Africa the white stork may spend the winter in Tunisia, Morocco, Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe, Djibouti, Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia, Swaziland, Gambia, Guinea, Algeria, and Ghana.

[42] In the Chernobyl area of northern Ukraine, white stork populations declined after the 1986 nuclear accident there as farmland was succeeded by tall grass and shrubs.

[35] White storks were probably aided by human activities during the Middle Ages as woodland was cleared and new pastures and farmland were created, and they were found across much of Europe, breeding as far north as Sweden.

[50] In 2020, a pair bred in the United Kingdom for the first time in over 600 years,[51] as part of a re-introduction initiative in West Sussex called the White Stork Project.

[47] A study published in 2005 found that the Podhale region in the uplands of southern Poland had seen an influx of white storks, which first bred there in 1931 and have nested at progressively higher altitudes since, reaching 890 m (3000 ft) in 1999.

Tailwinds and scarcity of food and water en route (birds fly faster over regions lacking resources) increase average speed.

[63] Juvenile white storks set off on their first southward migration in an inherited direction but, if displaced from that bearing by weather conditions, they are unable to compensate, and may end up in a new wintering location.

[64] An experiment with young birds raised in captivity in Kaliningrad and released in the absence of wild storks to show them the way revealed that they appeared to have an instinct to fly south, although the scatter in direction was large.

[65] White storks rely on the uplift of air thermals to soar and glide the long distances of their annual migrations between Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa.

For many, the shortest route would take them over the Mediterranean Sea; however, since air thermals do not form over water, they generally detour over land to avoid the trans-Mediterranean flights that would require prolonged energetic wing flapping.

Used in a variety of social interactions, bill-clattering generally grows louder the longer it lasts, and takes on distinctive rhythms depending on the situation—for example, slower during copulation and briefer when given as an alarm call.

Not only do their bodies tend to regulate temperatures within the nest, but excrement, food remains and feather and skin fragments provide nourishment for a large and diverse population of free-living mesostigmatic mites.

A survey of twelve nests found 13,352 individuals of 34 species, the most common being Macrocheles merdarius, M. robustulus, Uroobovella pyriformis and Trichouropoda orbicularis, which together represented almost 85% of all the specimens collected.

[118] One species of fluke, Chaunocephalus ferox, caused lesions in the wall of the small intestine in a number of birds admitted to two rehabilitation centres in central Spain, and was associated with reduced weight.

[119] More recently, the thorough study performed by J. Sitko and P. Heneberg in the Czech Republic in 1962–2013 suggested that the central European white storks host 11 helminth species.

[125] The white stork's decline due to industrialisation and agricultural changes (principally the draining of wetlands and conversion of meadows to crops such as maize) began in the 19th century: the last wild individual in Belgium was seen in 1895, in Sweden in 1955, in Switzerland in 1950 and in the Netherlands in 1991.

[128] Threats include the continued loss of wetlands, collisions with overhead power lines, use of persistent pesticides (such as DDT) to combat locusts in Africa, and largely illegal hunting on migration routes and wintering grounds.

[136][137][138] In the early 1980s, the population had fallen to fewer than nine pairs in the entire upper Rhine River valley, an area closely identified with the white stork for centuries.

Conservation efforts successfully increased the population of birds there to 270 pairs (in 2008), largely due to the actions of the Association for the Protection and Reintroduction of Storks in Alsace and Lorraine.

The 3rd century Roman writer Aelian citing the authority of Alexander of Myndus noted in his De natura animalium (book 3, chapter 23) that aged storks flew away to oceanic islands where they were transformed into humans as a reward for their piety towards their parents.

A well-known example of such a stork found in the summer of 1822 in the German town of Klütz in Mecklenburg was made into a mounted taxidermy specimen, complete with the ornate African arrow, that is now in the University of Rostock.

[156] German, Dutch and Polish households would encourage storks to nest on houses, sometimes by constructing purpose-built high platforms, to bring good luck.

[169] Likewise, in Norse mythology, the god Hœnir, responsible for giving reason to the first humans, Ask and Embla, has been connected with the stork through his epithets long-legs and mud-king, along with Indo-European cognates such as Greek κύκνος 'swan' and Sanskrit शकुन.

[171][172] Psychoanalyst Marvin Margolis suggested that the enduring nature of the stork fable of the newborn is linked to its addressing a psychological need, in that it allays the discomfort of discussing sex and procreation with children.

Birds have long been associated with the maternal symbols from pagan goddesses, such as Juno, to the Holy Spirit, and the stork may have been chosen for its white plumage depicting purity, size, and flight at high altitude likened to flying between Earth and Heaven.