Time lapse captures stork's nest overlooking massive fire

The footage of the day comes from a surveillance camera that was able to record a traumatic scene. On the 28th of April 2019, unidentified persons set on fire the Gilchin River valley.Show more

The fire was spreading so rapidly across the surface of the valley. The fire was going on for miles, especially because the camera has a fish eye lens that allows it to see further. But another effect of this fish eye lens is that the ground looks rounded a little bit. The initial landscape was really beautiful but as soon as the fire started spreading, it became sad to watch, to see the valley go up in smoke, from every side of it. The bird in the nest at the center of the video was getting nervous. He stood up in his nest, and started walking around anxiously, protecting his eggs.

The Gilchin river valley is situated near the village of Tambovka, Amur Region. In this part of the world, animals have established their nest in the wild. Animals such as Far East storks, cranes and other wetland birds. They nest and feed in the valley and floodplain of the river.

This time the camera was recording directly a stork. That one stork was in his nest covering his eggs. They were lucky, their nest is located at a safe height, on a metal support of a power line, were the camera was located to watch over a long distance. In general, every year, several stork nests burn from such fires along with eggs and chicks, not to mention smaller birds nesting on the ground, and other tiny animals that don’t fly and live on the ground. Wildfire like those is one of the worst case scenario for the echo system. Even for birds, because even if they can fly, their food might have been small animals living on the grounds that died during the fire.

The video is sped up for us to be able to see the whole process, in around one hour, everything that was in the wide angle of view of the camera was burnt to ashes. It is truly dramatic. All of that land burning and filling the sky with a smoky atmosphere. The bird must have felt all those sign, the heat, the smoke, it was also peeking at what was happening. When the fire had spread and was by the end of the camera reach, the bird sat down again thinking that the danger had past.