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Karlsruhe (dpa / lsw) - The Karlsruhe student Franziska Fritz found parts made of plastic in about every third of more than 170 bulges of storks.
After eating, a stork uses a vault to spit out what it cannot digest.
Fritz had collected and examined the choked out lumps from nests between Iffezheim (Rastatt district) and Altlußheim (Rhein-Neckar district).
In addition to skeletal remains of small animals and parts of the armor of insects or crabs, the 28-year-old also found cords, pieces of hard plastic and lots of rubber in the bulbs - in one of the lumps several rubber bands at once.
Fritz studies biodiversity and environmental education at the Karlsruhe University of Education.
According to the German Nature Conservation Union, storks are omnivores and occasionally look for their food in landfills. How dangerous plastic is for birds is still unclear.