The Stork With an African Arrow
1822
Where do birds go in winter? Until the 19th century, nobody really knew. Some scholars thought swallows slept at the bottom of ponds; others thought birds turned into other species. Then, in the spring of 1822, a white stork landed in northern Germany with a long African arrow stuck through its neck.
A stork with a stick
The University of Rostock tells the story: in May 1822, residents of the Bothmer estate near Klütz saw a white stork with what looked like an 80 cm stick hanging from its neck. Count Christian Ludwig von Bothmer shot the bird, and the 'stick' turned out to be a carved wooden arrow with an iron tip. Wikipedia gives the same place and year and says the arrow came from central Africa.
Proof of migration
The stork was stuffed and, the university says, presented to its zoological collection by Grand Duke Friedrich Franz I on 28 August 1822. Researchers realised what it meant. Knowledge of migration and winter quarters, the university notes, simply did not exist before the early 1800s; the stork was the first evidence that storks fly as far as equatorial Africa. Wikipedia makes the same point, explaining that the bird had survived being speared in Africa and flown back to Europe with the arrow.
Not the only one
The 1822 bird gave a word to German: a Pfeilstorch, or 'arrow stork'. Wikipedia says about 25 such storks had been documented in Germany by 2003. The original Rostock stork is still on display, and in 2018 the university gave a near-perfect replica to Schloss Bothmer, where the story began.