|
|
| |
|
STORKS
The Joy of Return |
To ornithologists, they
are Ciconia ciconia. Popularly known as
'white storks' or just 'storks' to others they are the bird
that brings babies.
|
|
I don't know
about you, but there's a nursery rhyme familiar to all of us who
are pushing forty about a cow that gets into the garden and eats
the cabbages until the gardener manages to chase it away.
There's another rhyme I remember from those days, "The stork is
in the sky / The egg is in the pan. " That's what we used to
yell at the long-billed birds wheeling overhead on white wings
back when we were kids in short pants and flower-printed
petticoats. Storks are the harbingers of spring in Anatolia and
are cherished accordingly. In spring when nature is reborn,
newlyweds leave birdseed in front of their houses. If the storks
eat it, it is believed a baby will be born to the couple. Tell
me which how babies of our generation weren't brought by the
stork?
|
 |
FIVE
EGGS AT MOST
These days storks are already beginning to take their places
atop the Seljuk tombs at Seyitgazi, the high-voltage
electricity pylons at Izmit, the minarets of the Artukid
mosque at Harran, and the ruins of the ancient aqueducts at
Selquk. After sleeping off their weariness for
a few days, their first job
is to check their nests, giving them a once-over with their
bills. With hay, grasses, even bits of newspaper, they will
repair the nests that have been battered by the winter
winds.
Then the
earth will bear witness to their mating rituals. Flapping
their wings and clacking their bills to produce the famous
"Iak lak" sound, the males will invites the females with
calls of love. If the call does not go unheeded, eggs will
appear in the nest. Exactly five of |
|
them. When
the mother stork rises from the nest 32 days later, the
babies w.iII start to crack their eggs. As the hungry new
nest dwellers clamour noisily for food, it is the father's
job to scour the fields for worms, slugs and insects. The
baby storks are ugly ducklingsnone of their parents' grace
and elegance as yet. When they get a little bigger, their
menu will change as well. Bring on the frogs, snakes and
fish! While the father flies off to bring back the bacon,
the mother stork spreads her wings over the little ones to
provide shade from the sun or shelter from the rain. None of
this has escaped the attention of humans, for whom the stork
has become a symbol for getting married, making a nest and
raising a family.
With their long
red bills, thin stalky legs and black and white bodies,
storks are a symbol of elegance in the animal world
|
|
A folk
song from Egirdir sums it up perfectly: "The stork goes to
his nest / Then flies down to the plain / Tell the maternal
uncle / Can a girl marry without her maternal uncle? / Is it
a wedding without the paternal uncle?"
THE
STORK HOSPITAL
Eight years ago in the Yörükler district of Samsun province,
road widening operations were brought to a halt in front of
a plane tree. Sitting in a nest in the top of the tree were
four storks. |
Storks live and
migrate in colonies |
|
Local
leaders met with the municipal authorities and a decision
was reached: The plane tree was not to be cut down before
the storks had migrated. Road construction would be put on
hold. The Turks' love of storks also caught the attention of
the writer Pierre Loti, an admirer of Ottoman culture who
came to Istanbul several times between 1870 and 1890. Among
the photographs Loti took of the city is one titled, 'People
Watching the Storks in front of Eyüp Mosque'.
|
Grasses at
the edge of wetlands offer a veritable stork feast |
It is
no accident that the storks are there. A hollow in the
trunk of the aged plane tree in the mosque garden was a
'Stork Hospital' in those days, caring for storks that
were unable to migrate! Poet Ahmet Ha:;;im has this to
say in his book about it: "At the heart of the Cobblers'
Market in Bursa there is a square which is a center for
lovers of disabled animals. Storks with broken legs or
wings and stunned crows live here on alms given by the
people. " As Edmondo de Amicis, who came to Istanbul in
1874, wrote, |
|
"Storks
go 'Iaklak' atop deserted tombs", Lady Wortley Montagu,
in her 'Letters from Turkey' dated 1717, says: "Ottomans
show respect to storks, because they believe that storks
visit Mecca every winter. " In Anatolia, the "Iak lak"
sound produced when the stork clacks his bill is
believed to be a form of worship, a prayer in which the
word 'Iak' is repeated 3 times: "Thine be the kingdom,
Thine be the power, Thine be the glory". |
|
Indeed, as birds without developed vocal chords, storks
are forced to produce this sound in order to communicate
because they can't sing. The nests built on chimneys,
ifees, andfullen minarets by storks, who are thought to
fly to the Kaaba, are never disturbed. To do such a
thing would be considered a sin. But the migration route
is not a pilgrimage but a lifeline for the storks, who
are compelled to fly to distant lands to reproduce and
raise their young. Starting out from Sudan and crossing
into Anatolia at Hatay, they have to fly 2900 km, and
from there another 1600 km via the Bosphorus to Europe,
for example, Poland. And of course there is also the
return trip, which takes another 18 days. People who
sight the first stork of spring flying over believe that
they will travel extensively during the year. Is not
this the significance of the expression, "to see the
stork in the sky"?
Let us step outdoors now and greet them with
a
poem, 'The Storks are Coming', by the Albanian poet
Betim Muço: "Storks are wheeling in the spring sky /
Storks bearing the sweet smell of the warm countries. |
Their famous 'lak
lak' is music to the ears of those who live in villages
where storks nest |
|
|
|
/ Welcome,
storks, welcome! / How nice it would be if war planes with
their deadly shrieks did not get in your way, / In the
limpid clear void of the sky where the warmth rises from the
earth. / Over the blue Mediterranean seething with sharks
and battleships. / As much as they need sun and bread, /
Humans have need of your grey skyways / To survive in this
world." |
The stork, who takes flight on slow wing beats, is actually a
marathon flier
|
|
Source: Skylife 04/04 |
|
Akgün
Akova & Nusret Nurdan Eren |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
