Quarantine entry #70 - May 30

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so I am not certain how regular I will be able to update my blog in the next couple of days. Now, where were we?

Ah, yes, storks. I am quite aware that they rhyme with ‘dorks’, so, a warning – we will be talking about the actual birds. We have mentioned them already, especially when we have talked about ibises, spoonbills, and herons – how initially storks were considered related to those birds, but now they consist of their own order, more closely related to the pelicans instead.

How are the storks different from the other three avian groups, again? The storks’ beaks are long and thick, with the herons’ being thinner and sharper (looking), the ibises’ beaks are usually curved downwards, and the spoonbills’… do we even need to go there? In addition, the storks are larger than the herons and ibises, proportionally, at least. What is next?

There are six genera of existing storks, (there are quite a few discoveries of fossil/extinct stork species), and many species of storks. The most iconic storks in Europe/Eurasia are the common white stork (Ciconia ciconia), and its’ counterpart, the black stork, (Ciconia niger). Unlike the swans, where a black swan is a symbol, the black stork is not anywhere as popular; for a while, it was considered to be endangered, but not anymore, (unlike, say, their cousin the oriental stork Ciconia boyciana… previously considered to be a subspecies of the previously mentioned white stork).

In North America, the best known and the only stork is the wood stork Mycteria americana instead. Its’ cousins are found in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia instead.

…So is the marabou stork, but it is a close relative of the adjutant storks instead, (there are two species of them, the lesser and the greater). This trio of storks, (aka the genus Leptoptilos), may be some of the most terrestrial storks, the largest and the most aggressive; the marabou, in particular, is known for being a scavenger about on par with Africa’s vultures; like them, it eats carrion, and armed with its’ formidable beak, it isn’t shy from confronting them either. The adjutant storks are less formidable than the marabou is, and the lesser adjutant in particular is found more in wetlands than in savannahs, but they all look more like each other than like the other storks.

This brings us to ‘Storks’ the 2016 film, which founded on the old ‘storks bring babies’ premise. Hans Christian Anderson, who has also written ‘The Little Mermaid’, on whom the Disney classic was based, cough, has even written a short fairy tale about a white stork family. Why white? Because they are the most social European stork species; the aforementioned black storks, for example, actually shy away from humans, and are not anywhere as social even of each other as the white storks or the marabous are.

…The Andersen’s fairy tale, in particular, is a much more cut-and-dry type of tale than ‘The Little Mermaid’ had been; but there are folklore elements – both of storks bringing babies to humans and of storks have human-like societies with leaders and courts, where they execute their disloyal spouses or the weaker storks that cannot fly south for winter, for example. Both concepts are folklore, they were generated by generations of people who had lived along the white storks, and who have given them human-like characteristics, even though this bird isn’t too human-like in appearance. Ah well, familiarity breeds… well, contempt, yes, but also comfort and acceptance. The white stork is not the only bird to benefit from this situation – the painted stork of India and the sacred ibis of Egypt are more cases of such turnout of events – and the birds have benefitted from that familiarity, it seems… Ah well, such are the oddities of human/animal interaction!...

…Also, for now, this is it. See you all soon!