High Birth Rate in the Alentejo

Our final day in Portugal with M&D which was sad.  It was all too short, though the cold nights are definitely a reality and we'll look forward to the warm house in Sutton.  In the end we did a lot for the short time we were there, and it has enabled us to really understand a lot more about what they are doing out there.

On the way to the airport, we witnessed another fascinating feature of this area of the country - the nesting storks.  All along the road for literally 100 kms there were stork nests one after the other, and most inhabited by one or two storks.  These nests were huge and most were situated on electricity poles and pylons, though many elaborate contraptions adorned the top of these poles to prevent this happening.

This shot was taken quickly as my movement towards this nest on top of a house disturbed the occupants and I wanted to capture their flight.  The extra photo features one of the pole based nests just to show what we were seeing all the way to Lisbon.