Are they broken up now? How strange that there is suddenly a nest right next to the road, on a lamppost. Very low to the ground for a stork’s nest. Usually they look a bit higher up. The high-voltage pylons in the next valley are particularly popular.
Efforts have been made to prevent the construction of stork nests
The new high-voltage pylons all have an inverted fan on the arms, and very curved shoulders, so that all the branches are swept off by those spinning little balls or they just slide off because of the drooping shoulders.
Too bad for those smart guys who are sitting in their offices coming up with these genius solutions, because the storks don’t care much. An electricity pylon has many floors, so they just turned it into an apartment complex. Hello neighbor!
The old chimney of the ruined rice factory in the neighboring village has been inhabited by a couple of storks for as long as I can remember. They come back every year, and if I can believe the experts, they are always the same.
Storks do not marry lightly, they remain loyal to each other for life
No idea if that’s true, because they’re pretty much identical – you can’t see any difference between the sexes or individuals. You can see it when they’re young – they look like they’ve just come freshly painted from the factory, all snow white, black where it should be black, and a bright orange beak. For the rest: all identical in my layman’s eyes.
We have been able to experience a wedding drama when a hijacker came to shore. A third stork that circled around that chimney nest every day. A young family, with newborn children! What a jerk, to direct your advances on a young mother.
Now there seems to be a little runin again, with that strange low sloppily cobbled together stork’s nest so low on that lamppost.
My imagination is running away with me. Mother stork is tired of always keeping the nest a bit nice and cozy with those three indifferent guys who never once take a single twig in their beak to straighten it out. Who don’t even bother to pee to the outside, or to retreat when they need to do a number two.
(They hatched two boy storks. This pair of storks always have two children, as far as I’ve seen, over the years.)
And she never looked at anyone else, not even when that loner was so pushy years ago. He was quite a nice boy, but she did not give in, she remained faithful to her husband. And now? When they were catching frogs in the fields, he winked at another woman. Even gave her his newly caught frog!
“The bastard. All men are the same”, she thought bitterly, and left for her lamppost.
He stubbornly sat on the nest. “Women! Always whining, one after the other” he thinks, also bitterly, “well, you can come crawl back on your knees, witch!”
I’m totally blown away. If even storks have marital crises, then the end of times must be near, you’d say.
But fortunately, next time I drive by, the lamppost nest is empty. And it remains empty. And there are – as it should be – just two silhouettes to see on that chimney (the boys flew out to start their own families).
Thank God. They’ve made up.
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We moved here in 2000 from Rotterdam, Holland to the Termas-da-Azenha, Portugal.
A big step, especially with two small children.
We are busy to rebuild one of portugals cultural heirlooms: Termas-da-Azenha, an old spa which has been turned into several holiday houses, rooms and a campsite.
You’ll find mosaics and paintings everywhere.
Since 2018 we call ourselves the first B&B&B in the world – Bed & Breakfast & Bathrobes. You can buy a home-made unique bathrobe/housecoat with us.
Each week a little blog about what is happening around us. An easy read. A few minutes in another world. A little about what it going on in Portugal. If you plan your holiday to Portugal, it might be a nice preparation
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