A year in a stork's life.

A year in a stork's life is a perfect circle, drawn from spring to spring, and every point on it has been repeated by the species for centuries. The white stork moves through its year with a rhythm as old as the flyways themselves, and the whole of it turns on a single nest.

Spring begins the circle. The bird returns from the south, claims its nest, and greets its mate. Then comes the laying, the sitting, and the hatching, and the whole long labour of raising a family through the warm months.

Spring, and the return

The year opens with migration north. The stork leaves its African wintering grounds and flies the length of a continent, following the warm air and the old routes, until it stands once more on the nest it left the autumn before.

This is the season of the clattering dance, of sticks added to the platform, of eggs laid and settled in the bowl. The spring is the season of beginnings, and the nest is at the center of it all.

Summer, and the brood

Summer is the season of the chicks. The eggs hatch, the down gives way to feathers, and the nest fills with a hungry, noisy brood. The parents fly from dawn to dusk, carrying food, and the young grow at a pace that seems almost too fast to watch.

By late summer the chicks have fledged. They stand at the edge of the nest, then step off into the air, and the summer's work is done. The nest, so full for two months, begins to empty.

Autumn, and the leaving

Autumn is the season of departure. The storks gather in loose flocks, and one day, when the wind is right, they lift off together and head south. The nest is left behind, a dark crown of sticks against the cooling sky.

For a young bird, this is the first migration, and it is the great test of the year. For an older bird, it is a road travelled many times, worn smooth by memory and instinct.

Winter, and the far south

Winter is spent far from the nest, in the warm lowlands of Africa, where the stork feeds and rests and waits. There is no hurry here. The long days of the southern season are a kind of pause, a breath taken between one spring and the next.

Spring again

And then, as the northern air warms, the instinct turns the bird north once more, and the circle closes. The stork flies home, lands on the same nest, and clatters its greeting to the sky. One year is done, and the next begins exactly where the last one did, at the top of a chimney, in the soft light of spring.