Probably twenty years ago, if my memory for dates serves me at all, we spent the Easter holiday in Salamanca, where we were able to watch the Easter processions from the balcony of our hotel room. Salamanca is a beautiful city and they do Easter processions well,
More impressive than the processions, however, were the storks. After we left Salamanca we travelled south, eventually visiting my sister in El Puerto de Santa María, across the bat from Cádiz. And all the way along we saw storks. I don’t think I had ever really noticed them before. I have been a little obsessed since.
In the last few years I’ve been watching them again on our various visits to places in Portugal. They build huge, sprawling, untidy nests in high places, impossible balance sometimes on the top of telegraph poles. Apparently other bird species such as sparrows, starlings and kestrels also live within these huge nests: a kind of avian commune. I think I have commented before on the fact that in some parts of Portugal itnis against the law to destroy a stork’s nest, even if it is built inconveniently in your garden!
There are organisations that inspect stork’s nests, presumably out of scientific interest. And according to this article, storks, like most other birds, use all sorts of stuff to build and line their nests. This includes plastic waste, including plastic twine, the kind of thing that might not be deliberately discarded but accidentally left behind by busy farmers. And this stuff gets tangled round the fledgling storks as they roll around in the nests. It’s sort of the avian equivalent of dolphins and sharks getting tangled in nets in the sea. They also need rescuing.
So there we are again, carelessly destroying the world for other species!
We don’t have storks around here. The closest we come to them is the heron who appears to fish under the bridge in the village centre and sometimes waits on the second bridge for nearby residents to feed him. I think they believe it might stop him attacking ducklings!
Around the world we continue to destroy the environment for our own kind, never mind the animals and birds. People, including children, are still being killed as they try to collect food and water from aid stations in Gaza. Here’s a report from yesterday:
“An Israeli airstrike has killed at least 10 people, including six children, who were waiting to collect water in Gaza, Palestinian health officials have said.
A separate airstrike on Sunday hit a home, killing nine people, and 31 others were shot dead near an aid distribution site on Saturday, marking another bloody weekend as the conflict’s death toll exceeded 58,000.
Witnesses said a drone fired a missile at a crowd holding empty jerry cans beside a water tanker in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. About 20 children and 14 adults were lined up when the strike occurred, Ramadan Nassar, who lives in the area, told the Associated Press. Al-Awda hospital received 10 bodies, including six children, health officials said.
The Israel Defense Forces said a “technical error” caused a strike aimed at an Islamic Jihad “terrorist” to fall dozens of metres from the target, and that the incident was under review.”
According to this article, even aid staff from organisations like from Médecins Sans Frontières are being killed. They’ve been protesting outside Westminster.
And yet here at home we continue to watch women’s football, Wimbledon, the Tour de France. We are all indulging in escapism of one kind or another.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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