Just Wing It

   Sometimes critters can be most amusing even when they are not trying to be.  I am not talking trained pets but critters in the wild.  Take the cormorant, for example.  These birds have uncanny knack for swimming low in the water.  Sometimes all you can see are their necks and small head.  If you are not careful, you could mistake them for a weird sea serpent.  (Perhaps the Loch Ness Monster was none other than a cormorant photographed at an unusual angle! Probably not, but it gives you the idea that cormorants are not your normal water fowl.) These birds do this merely because they are heavy.  Not really! Cormorants are adept diving birds and spend a good bit of time underwater.  They surface but only their neck and head are seen above water.  These birds lack the very oily feathers that other water birds have.  This is to decrease their buoyancy which helps them stay underwater for longer times than  other birds.  Their feathers become waterlogged which brings us to another unusual thing about cormorants.

  As I was on the pier today, I noticed a cormorant diving for little mullet.  The neck and head could be seen now and again but the body of the bird stayed underwater.  After a good twenty minutes or so of this, my friend decided it was time for a break.  It laboriously took flight and made a beeline for a tall post near my brother's pier.  There, the bird preened for a while.  It then took the "air-drying" position.  With wings outstretched, the cormorant stood in the warm sunshine.  This is sort of like hanging clothes on a line to dry but it would really be awkward for a cormorant to remove its feathers!  The whole ordeal of drying out took about an hour.  Then, my friend took off for another fishing expedition.

  I was rather amused at the actions of the cormorant even though I have seen this many times before. The bird reminded me of a band leader during the Swing Era.  I grew up watching the Lawrence Welk Show with Mom and Pop and  I have a vague memory of this talented man holding his arms out much like the bird's wings. Someone, hand that bird a baton and lets see what happens! Yep, I am amused by the simplest of things.