Storks' nests in odd places
RJ sez, "Storks will choose the position for their nest for a variety of reasons and if that happens to be atop a man-made object, then so be it. Some are welcomed and encouraged, others not so. Yet their ability to build huge nests in precarious positions never fails to surprise. Here are some examples that may just take your breath away."
Avian Architecture: The Precarious Nests of the Stork (Thanks, RJ!)
Although many Europeans encourage storks to nest on the roof of their home - it is supposed to increase the fecundity of the householders - many would gasp at the inherent danger that lies in building one's home on top of a deadly current of electricity. In Denmark, however, the stork is not a welcome guest and so this would be considered appropriate alternative housing. The Danish believe that if a stork builds a nest on top of your house then someone who lives there will die before the year ends. These parent storks, however, will not be on the nest for great periods of time. This stork in Hungary is flying back to the nest to feed its offspring. The visit will need to be fairly quick though - stork chicks can eat anything up to sixty percent of their body weight each day. That is quite a few fish and frogs.
(Image: Stork's nest II, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike image from Tillwe's Flickr stream)
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Funny to see this pic (which I took ;-) here, even if the cc-by-sa licencse didn't make it to Boing Boing.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tillwe/1525618653/
But besides that, some comment about Avian Architecture's comment (in the original blog). The pic is take in Gundelfingen, a small town near Freiburg, southern part of Germany. The building is part of the church there. The town is quite happy to have this stork's nest there, even for the droppings.
Reason: whereas nests like this were quite typical for rural Germany until the 1960s, since then storks became endangered. So they are quite proud that a pair of storks settled the church tower. They come back year for year, and there is even a bird-watchers CCTV installed by the equivalent of the local Sierra Club, BUND.
Sorry, Tillwe! Attribution added.
Sorry, Tillwe! Attribution added.
Those locations are not odd, they are completely normal for storks. There is by far not as much superstition about storks as might be implied by the text above. Since the stork population has receded strongly because of the disappearance of natural wetlands due to intensified farming, people are really happy if a stork comes to town. On churches and other high places, the building of nests is often encouraged by putting up a framework for the storks to build upon in the next season.
http://www.sweetpeasandpolkadots.com/the_storks.html
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_DZwOmtWaXyY/R_snEL4cteI/AAAAAAAAAN4/Z0I0gU6BRPI/s400/girl_stork_354w.jpg
When I was living in Spain, I noticed that many storks were building their nests on the phone and power poles around the graveyards!
It was the wildest thing to seem them stalking around the graves, or peering down at them from their perches.
"The Marabou Stork is a frequent scavenger, and the naked head and neck are adaptations to this, as it is with the vultures with which the stork often feeds. In both cases, a feathered head would become rapidly clotted with blood and other substances when the bird's head was inside a large corpse, and the bare head is easier to keep clean."
http://www.toptenz.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/marabouslipperredlg.jpg
Good wallpaper!
Storks! :) Love them. And like #4 said, nothing unusual about those nests.
Here in Poland, the stork is considered a national bird, so it's quite common for people to set up special constructions for the birds to make their nests on. Sometimes they even put fake storks up to attract the real ones.
Here's a picture of a dead tree left standing just so a stork family could nest there: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cefeida/2588846768/
@1
I visited Gundelfingen 2 years and immediately thought of the town when I saw this picture... glad to see that my instincts were correct!
I was hoping to find out more about the stork/baby meme that comprised the sum of reproductive knowledge by those who were raised on a strict diet of Warner Brothers cartoons.
On this site
http://creagrus.home.montereybay.com/storks.html
I found an interesting quote of a quote, which I shall quote here:
The legend about White Storks bringing babies arose in northern Germany. To quote Elliott (1992): "It is interesting to note that storks start to arrive there about nine months after midsummer, which could mean that the legend goes right back into pagan times. It is certainly true that, until this century with its problems of overcrowding, most civilizations were very keen to have as high a birth-rate as possible, in order to have greater manpower for work and for fighting wars. The association of storks and babies was undoubtedly highly propitious for the bird, as people encouraged the birds to nest on their roofs, in the belief that they would bring fertility and prosperity to the house."
Storks are indeed a wonderful thing. Thanks Cory!
I was standing in a field full of Marabou Stork just a few weeks ago. Easily the scariest-looking creature I've ever seen. They are ENORMOUS - there were horses in the field and these birds were almost tall enough to look them in the eye. They'd stand around with their wings spread, presumably to cool down, and it's a truly intimidating sight - the span's much, much bigger than your own. And the beak - oh boy. It looks like it could have your arm clean off without too much trouble.
When it came to nesting, they mostly seemed to build them in acacia trees, and when bedtime came they looked utterly ridiculous trying and failing to look inconspicuous whilst standing four feet tall in a nest the size of an armchair.
If one of those fuckers took up residence on my chimney, I think I'd move out for fear of it swooping down and beheading me one day.
my favorite area to watch storks this year is around Obermarchtal/Zwiefaltendorf/Unlingen (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=obermarchtal,+germany&sll=48.112217,9.572954&sspn=0.015759,0.04549&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=12). They all have nests on the Churches and you can watch them hunt for frogs at the Danube. And the best place to hang out is Thomas Blank's little 800 year old brewery in Zwiefaltendorf, where he makes one of the world's best beers. I always go there when I have enough of "Shaping Network Society" www.philippmueller.de
what? this innocent little creature?
http://www.kapstadt.org/images/images-14/birds-vogel/marabou-marabu-stork-2g.jpg
I am a native Dane, and I have *never* heard of said superstition. It must have been from way back when storks were everywhere and could lead to practical problems. In the last 50 years at least, they have been a strong symbol of romantic country-side life, and stork sightings and breedings in the wild (as in, outside of zoos) are reported in the newspapers and much photographed. We would have taken the stork as our national bird except some other country already took it. We
This large, noble bird is considered sacred by Latvians and many other nationalities. Almost at every third farm house a pair can be found nesting. Often the stork is enticed to a house by hoisting a wheel on top of a pole to supply the foundation for a nest. Many beliefs are associated with storks; for example, the house where a stork lives has good fortune; a stork protects the home from fire; if a stork's nest is destroyed, the house burns down; and, of course, a stork brings babies.
The white stork, unlike the black, is not afraid of people. It boldly walks behind a mower in quest of frogs or lizards cut by the mower.
Approximately 10,000 pairs of white storks nest in Latvia (in 1934 there were 7,000 pairs) - that is, one pair per 250 inhabitants; that is why Latvia can be called the land of storks. In some places storks live in huge colonies and walk en masse through neighbouring fields. One such colony with more than 30 nests is located near Matisi in a lane by the Valmiera - Mazsalaca road. Here one can see up to three or four nests in one tree. White storks are not people shy, and they let themselves be observed and photographed. Nesting colonies of storks are characteristic of southern regions; of all such colonies, the northernmost one is located in Latvia.
http://www.li.lv/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=81&Itemid=1148