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I have portrayed for La Vanguardia’s Readers’ Photos the moment when the white storks (and one black) passed by, today in Vic, in Osona.
They have been stopping in Vic for days on their way to warmer lands and, in this group, a single black stork has curiously gathered for the migration.
I have captured the photos from the south of Vic, in the Serra de Senferm neighborhood. You can see in the background the most emblematic buildings of the city, the passing of the train and in one image, the black stork in the foreground.
It is as if the ugly duckling, protagonist of the popular metaphor story of the difference in appearance, had become a stork. Only one black woman stands out among a large group of white women.
We are more accustomed to associating the image of the stork with the color white. The black one is somewhat smaller than the familiar white stork, it has a size of 95 to 100 cm, and a wingspan of between 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.
The black stork is wilder and more solitary than the white stork and avoids human company. In Europe their number is small. In the Iberian Peninsula its presence is not abundant either (one of its favorite habitats is the north of Extremadura, in the Sierra de Malcata Natural Reserve).
