Breakfast of the Cormorants

 

Shortly after dawn this morning I was walking Edie along the shoreline of the old naval air station, when I noticed a large, circling flock of dark birds overhead.

I recognized them as cormorants and am used to seeing their outstretched necks and powerful wing beats overhead, flying purposefully along the shoreline. But these were circling and splashing in for a landing just offshore. More and more flew in, their webbed feet down like landing gear.

I’d seen them working in unison in the past, so I stopped to watch. While they splashed down over a wide area, they quickly congregated and began swimming toward shore, necks up in a gentle S shape, all of their beaks facing the beach. There were about 30 to 35 of them.

A few stuck their heads under water, but none dove until some imperceptible signal, and then within seconds all but four of them were underwater. The four had been toward the back, and they continued toward the beach until some of their comrades popped up above the surface again, sometimes flapping forward to the frontline, otherwise just diving back down, and three of the laggards finally dove for their breakfast, too.

I tried to imagine them swimming underwater, and what it must be like for the school of fish down there, who had been minding their own fishy business until the dive-bombing began, the surface went dark and immense birds were chasing and devouring some, driving the rest purposefully toward the shallow water.

Finally the last bird dove for breakfast, too. They actually pushed the school of fish toward the shore near me, they were twenty to thirty yards away before the school must have veered off toward the middle of the shallow bay, and the flock of cormorants continued their chase.

My route with Edie follows a loop away at that point, so we circled and by the time we came back there were perhaps a half dozen to a dozen cormorants in the distance, probably relaxing in the cormorant version of pushing away from the table and leaning back after a big meal. A few pelicans were fishing around them, sudden bursts of water upon impact, and then the big birds bobbing back up, craning their necks to swallow.

I never get tired of seeing the cormorants working together, driving the fish forward until the school becomes easy pickings.