I've had a number of largely positive responses to this year's seasonal e-greet but there seems to be confusion as to what the image actually consists of.
Let me explain.
I spotted this singular group of weathervanes on the top of the stumpy steeple that graces the Saumur Hôtel de Ville. Are they storks? Their tail plumage is all wrong, but that's it, you see, – they need those atypical tail feathers to catch the breezes and thus turn them to point into the wind, just like the weathercocks that top-off many a church, chapel and cathedral do. The birds appear in profile because I took their likeness with my box-brownie against a blue sky.
But they are by all appearances, pretty much two dimensional.
The two calling birds (on the right of the group) don't recognise these cut-outs as birds at all of course, hence their indelicate perches on the convenient tail 'feathers' of two of the storks:
the 'calling birds' are real —they flew off after a few moments of rest and recuperation. The uppermost stork is a size bigger than the others. They all appear to pivot on what looks like a third leg. Maybe it would have been better to leave each bird on just one leg; more convincing.
I have been unable to discover if storks have a particular significance to Saumur and conclude that, whoever designed and made this avian group, they were thinking creatively, and aspired to be original in their conception.
I like them, whatever they are meant to be.
See if you can spot them next time you saunter in Saumur…
May be they are cranes?
I hope this clears up any confusion.
Here endeth my 2025 posts.
Bless!
