Cukurbagli's Blog   My life in Turkey

I had a trip to Fethiye on Tuesday, only an hour and a half by car but by far the furthest I have been since the Corona/Covid shit hit fan last year. It was really nice to get out and see more of the country and notice changes that have taken place over the last eighteen months. The purpose of the visit was to take a friend of mine to hospital for her periodic eye check and to visit a few shops that we don’t have in Kaş. On the way back near Alaçat I spotted a sight that is not unusual for this part of Turkey, a stork in a nest on top of an electricity pylon. Storks have lived in this area for probably many thousands of years, they feature heavily in the art and mosaics of the ancient archeology around here. We were going a bit too quickly in a stream of traffic to be able to slam the brakes on and stop for a photo or two, also my good camera was at home so I decided to go back to that spot on Wednesday armed with a long lens and a fully charged battery pack to get some good photographs. When I got back there I was delighted to see that not one but four storks were in the nest. Three of them had their back to the only accessible place I was able to stand but the other one was moving around.

The nest was enormous and had obviously been built over a few years, not only that but there were a lot of other birds perched on the wires going to the pylon. I walked around the pylon and tried from different angles and to get the best shots but with it being such a big nest and very high it was difficult, I really needed a fire truck with a high ladder, there was nowhere to get any better angle.

It wasn’t until I got back home and was able to zoom in on the photographs on my large screen that it became more obvious that the other birds had burrowed into the lower portions of the nest and created their own nests, so that was the reason they were all hanging around there, I had thought they were taking advantage of the shade afforded by the nest.

Whether the four were made up of Dad, Mum and two chicks or one parent and three chicks or even four chicks I have no idea, the one standing seems to look like an adult to me but I could easily be wrong.