White Stork

This bird delivers babies. Not metaphorically. Not symbolically. No: quite literally.

Or at least that’s what generations of Europeans decided was the least disturbing explanation for where children come from, outsourcing reproductive logistics to a migratory wetland enthusiast with a two-metre wingspan.

The stork — tall, elegant, mildly judgmental — spends most of its time standing in fields and wetlands, silently evaluating frogs and small mammals as potential lunch.

And yet: Somewhere along the way, it became the unofficial courier of human offspring.

White storks migrate thousands of kilometres every year, crossing continents without GPS, project governance, or a clearly defined target operating model. They return to the same nests — sometimes weighing several hundred kilograms — year after year, turning church towers and chimneys into long-term real estate investments in avian optimism.

Today, they are celebrated as symbols of luck, fertility, and renewal.

Which is interesting, considering that their primary observable activity involves impaling amphibians.

The stork is not a myth.

It is a six-kilogram reminder that if something arrives unexpectedly in your life, there is a reasonable chance it travelled very far — and has no emotional investment in the outcome whatsoever.

Nikon Z9 - Nikkor Z 400 mm 1:4,5 VR S - ISO 1800 - f/4.5 - 1/1600