щъркел – Shturkl!

Everybody knows you can find some storks living in Alsace, France – but these days, just a few.  And if you look hard enough, you can find some living in Southern Germany – but these days, even fewer.

The first time I left Sofia to explore the West Bulgarian countryside, I was amazed to find huge numbers of storks – also known as “shturkl” in Bulgarian. Here are storks on a monument (monument storks):

Here are storks on a transformer (transformer storks?)

And here are storks on a house (house storks):