Storks are harbingers of spring. Parents care well for their young, and the young care for their parents when they grow old (an attribute later applied to the hoopoe). They watch their nests so zealously that they lose their feathers from constantly brooding. They are named after the rattling noise they make by striking their beaks. They are companions of society, but enemies of snakes. Two crows lead flocks of storks when they cross the sea to Asia.

As storks make a sound by clashing their bills, so do those who 'with weeping and gnashing of teeth' proclaim their guilt through confession. As the stork is the enemy of the snake, so the righteous should be the enemy of the "snakes" of evil thoughts.