Friday, July 26, 2013

Stork Nests in the Algarve


Native wildlife is always fun to encounter when visiting a foreign land, and we got a kick out of seeing the multitude of storks and their enormous, high-perched nests all over the Algarve region of southern Portugal last summer!  These Iberian White Storks build their nests in the most precarious of places:  lampposts, electrical towers, church steeples, chimneys, and smoke stacks.  It's really quite remarkable to see.


The white storks thrive in the natural salt marsh environment of the Algarve, so much so that in the last 30 years or so increasing numbers of the birds have chosen to stay in Iberia all year rather than migrate to Africa in the winter.  Storks live for 20 to 30 years in the wild, and sometimes form colonies of hundreds.


Storks will return to the same nest year after year, continuously adding new material, and some nests can weigh nearly a ton!


Thinking about the story of storks delivering newborn babies, I found it somewhat allegorical that the storks in the above photo built their nest on top of an old advertisement reading, "Once upon a time".

Two stork nests visible in this photo.

This is my Photo Friday link-up post to DeliciousBaby.com.

10 comments:

  1. Those nests are incredible! I had no idea that storks built nests either quite so big or quite so high!

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  2. Very cool! And HOW fun to see the "Once upon a time" written there - and in English. ;-)

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  3. Wow! How neat! My daughter would love discovering these, She is so into nature and loves birds.

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  4. Very cool. I had no idea that storks used the same nest year after year. Love the "Once Upon a Time" picture.

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  5. There is a town in Spain that has tons of stork nests too, called Pedraza, it is very cool!

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  6. This is all very interesting info on the storks. I don't think I've ever seen stork's nests before so this was so neat to see and in unlikely places. Love how they're perched so precariously up above. Would love to see this in person one day.

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  7. Seeing native wildlife is one of my favorite things about vacation too! It seems like you saw quite a few of them too, and that's great. Their nests really are an architectural marvel! They're huge!

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  8. That's amazing that they can balance nests so precariously. I like that Once Upon a Time photo, too.

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  9. I always thought the Algarve sounded so romantic and the stork nesting next to "Once upon a time" just makes it SO perfect!

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