If you saw a large flock of birds flying in the skies of Jordan today, then you would have witnessed white storks mid-migration.

The large birds spend the warm summer months - their breeding season - in the Middle East, west-central Asia and central and southern Europe.

As summer draws to a close, the storks begin migrating in the thousands to southern Africa.

The birds of prey are fascinating; they usually fly across the Sahara desert without stopping, and if they do, they take a food break in Sudan before continuing with their journey.

A wet habitat is the best environment for storks to breed in. The birds look for freshwater habitats such as wet pastures, flood-plains, marshes, lakes and rice-fields, where they build nests nearby to lay their eggs in.

That’s why Jordan’s Azraq Oasis was the perfect habitat for storks in the 1970s, before the land dried up due to desertification.