“White Storks in Southern Portugal” ….. What a Wonderful Picture! …. An Elegant Couple in a Striking Setting
“Did you know? Legend has it that in the old days in Portugal, it was considered very bad luck to kill a stork. The punishment, so the story goes, is that an offender had his hand chopped off. Now that really is bad luck. Ancient Thessaly, a region found in modern Greece, originally implemented the death penalty for anybody killing a stork; even worse luck.
For many years the stork has been a protected species worldwide. In Portugal they are almost revered. Unfortunately, these beautiful creatures migrate from southern Europe to the Near East and Africa where, despite still being protected under law, many countries do not enforce the law, or they implement very light penalties, that do little to deter hunters. Much illegal killing of storks and other protected species still takes place when these birds migrate” — https://meravista.com/en/algarve/information/fun-stuff/storks-in-the-algarve
ALSO read and absorb: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_stork
…. and, THEN, there are the Pelicans in the Danube Delta in Romania: I was fortunate in being able to ‘shoot’ some of them with my standard camera when Shona and I stopped off at a small town and took a boat ride with Autero Travels among the swamps and lakes at one spot. No explanations are called for here.
So, do compare the White Storks with the White Pelican in the Danube Delta of Romania.
The black cormorants and pure-white storks work as a complementary team: when fish shoals pass by, the cormorants dive deep for their mouthful of prey and as the fish spew upwrds and everywhere, the pelicans scoop them up.
