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It has been a surprise to be able to photograph for Las Fotos de los Lectores de La Vanguardia this specimen of American black stork in the Ges river, in the Osona region. It was alone and ringed, very rare, because they don’t nest in this area.
We are more used to associating the image of the stork with the color white. The black stork is somewhat smaller than the familiar white stork, with a length of 95–100 cm, and a wingspan of 145–155 cm.
The black stork weighs about 3 kg. They can reach a height of 102 cm. Like all storks, it has long legs and neck and a long, straight and pointed beak, as can be seen in the photographs.
The black stork is a migratory bird, wintering in tropical Africa and India. Take advantage of hot air currents to gain altitude by gliding and save energy on long-haul flights.
The black stork is wilder and more solitary than the white stork and shies away from human company. In Europe their number is low. In the Iberian Peninsula its presence is not abundant either (one of its preferred habitats is the north of Extremadura, in the Sierra de Malcata Nature Reserve).
The Ges river is a tributary of the Ter, which flows into its main river in the municipality of Torelló, slightly south of Sant Pere de Torelló.
However, despite being a tributary of a larger river, the Ges also has its own rivers that flow into it, especially the Fornès, which flows into Sant Pere de Torelló itself.
