Sunday, July 18, 2010

For the birds



In the nest on top of a chimney several storeys above the main street of the ancient town of Gengenbach in Germany, where they were hatched a few months ago, two young storks await their mother who will soon bring them their food.



I have been watching them through a webcam that that can be trained on them or on various other sights in the town below. It's a sight that I would not be able to enjoy if I were a tourist on the ground.



These young storks are as large as their mother, and I marvel at how mindful of each other's space they seem to be. They barely fit in, or rather, on, their nest, which is more like a platform than a nest. No safety railings here. They could easily jostle each other out of the nest to their doom. When they spread their large wings, they seem to be mindful of where the other one is and so do not inadvertently knock each other off.


Patient watching rewarded with some amusing poses:

One bird, four legs?


Two birds, three beaks?


Two birds, one head?


Recently they have been spreading their wings preparing for flight

Just after I snapped this screen shot, this stork, the larger of the two, rose straight up about a foot into the air as he experimented with flapping his wings. It happened too fast to capture that exciting event.

One day soon they will take to the air on their maiden flight. I fervently hope I will witness that moment.


They will soar above the main street of Gengenbach


Perhaps someone in the market in front of the Rathaus (Townhall) will look up and spot them:


Then they will go about their mission of delivering babies all over the world. No? Well, that was what I was taught in those days when that was as much sex education as you got officially.

8 comments:

Pak Idrus said...

Louis, that is an invasion of privacy! You might get a letter from their lawyer soon.

Have a nice day anyway.

Pak Zawi said...

>Funny one Pak Idrus.
Louis, ain't technology amazing? Tell me how to get the webcam view like you are getting? Ain't savvy enough to find such things.
Anyway what you are capturing are great shots. Congratulations are in order.

louis said...

Oh! Oh! seems I am in trouble, Idrus. Maybe I should retain Karpal :)?

louis said...

Zawi,

Thanks for your positive comments.

There is no url for the webcams i use. It is not a website as such but an App specifically for the iPad and iPhone which one has to buy and download from Apple's online iTunes store, which I don't think is available in Malaysia yet.

Pat said...

Hi Louis!

A perfectly incredible post! And I enjoyed it immensely! Only superlatives fill my brain-box!

And, Pak Idrus, good one!!!

And, to Zawi, about the webcams - when Larnee was in Fredericton, I googled the town, and got their official website, which also carried their webcam shots. Maybe, if you google other towns, you'd be able to find their webcams and be able to 'catch' what Louis has 'caught'!

You don't need to worry your pretty head about it, Louis - you have your lovely iPad, which I am very jealous about!

Back to the Fredericton webcam - it showed three locations in Freddy, and since Larnee was there - away from home for the first time, it afforded Chuan and me a glimpse of her town, what time it was there, what was happening; and we got to see it's first snowfall in winter. Somehow, it helped us feel closer to her - even though she was thousands and thousands of miles away.

louis said...

Pat,

What you say about a live webcam making you feel you are "right there" is so true. It captures the flow of daily life and life from day to day in a way no other medium does. I have never been in Coburg, Germany, for example, but come Tuesday nights here, Wednesday mornings there, I have already begun to to feel like it's time to go down to the Wednesday market in the Marktplatz. I pace the platform at a small train station outside Prague when the train is one minute late.

I didn't think of suggesting a Google search to Zawi. Thanks for your brilliant advice to him. The system of "Apps" that Apple introduced with the iPhone and iPad has made it unnecessary to think about url's to do so many things that I had forgotten all about googling for some things.

Thanks for the positive reinforcement.

~CovertOperations78~ said...

*Claps hands*
Wonderful, wonderful! Aren't storks amazing? I hope you get to record their maiden flight too, Louis! I especially love the trick photography that the storks obliged you with. One bird, four legs. Ha ha ha! Invasion of privacy? I should think the birds are happy to show off for you!

louis said...

CO'78,

You are back! Great.

Nice to have a lawyer in my corner.

I missed the maiden flight...was just in time to see his tail falling out of the nest. Didn't seem like a take-off and I was apprehensive, until he flew from off camera back into the nest a few minutes later.

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