One of the minor thrills of heading south over the mountains from Asturias into León is sighting storks. “Look!” I proclaim to my running partner on our trips to races in León or other provinces, “Isn’t that one?” The tall hunched bird in the field could be nothing other than a stork. Even more noticeable is the bird atop a nest—a great, twiggy bowl balanced on a power pole, perched upon a church steeple, or lodged in the upper branches of a tree. If I had children in the back seat, I’d commandeer their phones or consoles and devise a storking competition to keep their eyes and minds employed, picking out the birds to admire.
During the first weekend of February, two races in the province of Valladolid took my running partner and me south. Sighting the first couple of storks and nests was so routine a pleasure that I did not dwell on it. But when we stopped for a coffee in Tordesillas, my partner pointed out a lone stork on the spire of a church belfry. It was afternoon, still sunny but with a hint of evening chill. I took a couple of pictures from afar.
After a stroll through the streets of the town, we again found ourselves near the same tower. The stork was no longer perched on the spire. But as I gazed up at the belfry, a flash of white feathers showed that the bird had descended from its high perch to the nest on the pediment just below, where it appeared to have joined its mate. To get a different angle on the birds, we walked down a narrow street to see if the pair would be more visible from the far side of the tower.
We did get closer and saw both storks, their heads and necks and a bit of raised wing visible as the male strutted for the female. Of course—mating season.
The street was narrow, and the building attached to the tower was rather shabby. What was it? The façade was a mix of brick, stone, and plaster—the result of being patched and patched again over the centuries. The iron-gated doorway to the interior courtyard was in a section of the wall that appeared in good shape, perhaps newer than other parts of the building. Above the doorway was a stone etched with the year 1761, a rather recent date compared to the original building, which a plaque said was from 1467. It was constructed as a hospital for the poor. Now the building itself was poor: the crumbling plaster, the rusted iron of the gate, the rotting particle board covering the bars. I put my eye to the crack between pieces for a sight of the courtyard within, overgrown and abandoned.
Then I noticed a chunk of old fissured wood in a curved niche above the door. I snapped a picture of it, and later I could just make out a carved brow, a long nose, and flowing hair on the figure, a virgin or saint. Two pigeons sat in the niche at the base of the figure, soaking up the last rays of the sun—the same sun that year after year had dried and warped and cracked the wood and had long since bleached the color of whatever paint originally enhanced the carved statuette, turning a piece of deft work into a chunk of old wood. Over the centuries, the building had suffered time and other misfortunes, including a fire, and been rebuilt, only again to wear and crumble. It was now a ruin. But the storks nesting atop the belfry and the pigeons in their sunny alcove didn’t mind about that as they enjoyed the warm rays of sun on a winter’s day.
