Dear friends and followers,

actually, I thought I was done with family planning...

But recently we have a new neighbour, who makes me a little nervous about this.

See for yourself:

Mythology

According to European folklore, the stork is responsible for bringing babies to new parents. The legend is very ancient, but was popularised by a 19th-century Hans Christian Andersen story called The Storks. German folklore held that storks found babies in caves or marshes and brought them to households in a basket on their backs or held in their beaks. [...] Households would notify when they wanted children by placing sweets for the stork on the window sill.

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It's interesting to think about the origins of this mythology.

Birds have long been associated with the maternal symbols from pagan goddesses such as Juno to the Holy Ghost, and the stork may have been chosen for its white plumage (depicting purity), size (in that it is big enough to carry an infant), and flight at high altitude (likened to flying between Earth and Heaven).

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Sporty Storks

As we live directly opposite a sports field, the stork obviously enjoyed the warm floodlight. As far as I can tell, it's a European white stork.

As those storks migrate in the winter time, they are really sporting aces themselves.

The white stork is a long-distance migrant, wintering in Africa from tropical Sub-Saharan Africa to as far south as South Africa, or on the Indian subcontinent. 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.

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Conservation

Although the White Stork population had declined due to industrialisation in the 19th century and evaluated as near threatened in 1988, the species has since been reintroduced to many regions and been rated as least concern by the IUCN since 1994.

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.

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Etymology

The word stork is derived from the Old English word storc, and appeared in the 10th-century works the Erfurt Glossary, where the word is equated with Ciconia, and Aelfric's Homilies. The word is related to the Old High German storah, "stork", and similar words in many other European languages, all of which are descended from the Germanic sturko-z.

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When I saw the stork still sitting at the flood light pole next morning, I really began to believe, that he would start building a nest.

Breeding

Althoug I've never seen a nest on a light pole, Storks often nest close to human habitation, like on churches and other buildings.

The nest is typically used year after year especially by older males. The males arrive earlier in the season and choose the nests. [...] Although a pair may be found to occupy a nest, partners may change several times during the early stages and breeding activities begin only after a stable pairing is achieved.

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But

...the stork had sitten there some more hours, until he suddenly disappeared.

Although it would have been great to see a pair raise there brood right in front of my living room, I somehow felt a relieve considering the fact, that my youngest daughter just turned seven the other day and I really don't plan to start over again...

Have you ever seen a stork in real life? Do you like them?

Let me know in the comments!

Thanks for watching!

@shortcut - art, photography and more

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_{Images shot with my Canon Rebel T5i and a Tamron AF 70-300mm lense.}

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