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I have captured this series of photographs for La Vanguardia Readers’ Photos from Sotoserrano, in Salamanca, where the saying is true and you can see the storks in San Blas, even if it is in the fog.
February 3 is Saint Blaise, who was a doctor and bishop of Sebaste (now in Turkey), during the 3rd and 4th centuries. He is revered as an “advocate against throat ailments”, since one of the miracles attributed to him is the healing of a child who had a fish bone stuck in this part of his body. Saint Blaise was tortured and executed in the time of Emperor Licinius, during the persecutions of Christians at the beginning of the 4th century.
But, the expression has remained in the proverb: “By San Blas, the stork you will see”, which, in reality, comes to tell us that, on a meteorological level, it predicts the end of winter. Although this year Candelaria, by smiling, has told us that there will still be cold days. Who will be right?
The stork is a colonial species, which installs its nests in churches, antennas, electricity towers, silos, chimneys, country houses, ruins and in trees.
The white stork is large in size, recognizable by its mostly white plumage with black on the wings and red legs and beak.
This bird measures, from the tip of the beak to the end of the tail, an average of between 100 and 115 centimeters, and its wings can reach a span of between 155 and 215 centimeters.
The stork spends winter in Africa, the Indian subcontinent and some areas of the Arabian Peninsula. Once spring arrives, it migrates to Europe. Although it is also true that, with climate change, there are already those who stay here.
