Shared Housing

Another glorious day. P and I went for a walk again, this time down to Schierstein, a village on the river Rhine. It's famous for its stork colony and we hoped to see some of these fabulous birds. And so we did.They are back from their migration and busy building nests and clattering their bills. 

Some are building their nests on pylons (see extra), others are more traditional in their ways and go for big trees. 

I was going to post the extra as my main blip, because I managed to catch one in flight when he came back to the nest, where his mate sat clapping in welcome.

Only when I looked at the other photo on my computer screen I spotted the squatter just underneath the stork's nest in the tree. It's a rose-ringed parakeet, a feral parrot species that's become as common along the Rhine as in the south-east of England. 

As it's got to be a rare sight to have a stork and a parakeet sharing one nesting tree, this had to be the blip for today.