'The Cattle Egret Convention' (not white storks)

This is embarrassing! One reader of this blog, Fernanda, who saw this post today (16th May) has kindly sent in a comment that effectively convinced me that I don't know my birds. So here I am updating this post because I don't want to continue to sound like an idiot or confuse my readers:

As I was travelling south after my short Easter break I decided to leave the A2 motorway at Alcácer do Sal. I did that to avoid tolls on part of the way home and because Alcácer is a pretty town and I wanted to do some sightseeing.

It was worth it even though the town has road works in progress and the road between it and Grândola (IC1) is in dire need of resurfacing. Thankfully, the road between Grândola and the Algarve (still the IC1) is almost as good as the A2 motorway.

Anyway, I digress. This is supposed to be about the Young White Stork Cattle Egret Convention! 

It wasn't announced in any of the papers but it took place in a pine forest just south of Alcácer. The first sign of it was a group of small white storks birds on the ground under the pine trees, so I stopped and took the top photo. As I was doing that I noticed the noise. It was a very noisy event, as conventions usually are. No wonder, the tree-tops were covered in many more small white storks cattle egrets and they were all very vocal!

It seemed to me the convention was all about demonstrating the best flying techniques and proving how cute white storks cattle egrets can be, as there was a lot of movement between the ground and the tree-tops. It made me quite dizzy trying to capture the action on film, so to speak.

Of course if I had remembered how to work the camera to make a short video, it would be easier for you to understand why I found this so fascinating!

(Note to self: find instruction manual and learn about video sequences!)

Related post: Storks and the City