Years ago, when I commuted on the (old) 520 bridge to Kirkland on the bus, I used to love looking for cormorants and other birds as I crossed the bridge. The cormorants often lined up on the buoys that ran parallel to the bridge, one per buoy, usually with their wings outstretched, all the way across the lake. It felt like a welcoming party, especially since the old bridge was so low to the water so I was almost on level with the buoys.
As a biologist working on habitat restoration, I've heard more than once some blame cast on cormorants as the species preventing recovery of species like Chinook salmon. Like other piscivores, they're just trying to get by but they happen to be eating the same things we like to catch. I sense a bit of jealousy in their older descriptions as greedy; more likely, they are just super-efficient predators and that might be frustrating to the shoreside person fishing.
Correigh, Thanks for your insights. Sadly, as you know, what else is knew. Easier to blame the birds or the seals or the ... instead of curtailing one's own behaviors.
Cormorants were one of the first birds I learned to recognize. We’d see them perched on the ferry bumpers every time we crossed the Salish Sea for Christmas. If it were up to me, they’d be associated with holiday delight!
when i had my duwamish exploring boat a few years ago i regularly came across a cormornt colony behind the museum of flight and the boeing DC across from the fancy yacht building yard and just north of the turning basin. it was a busy spot for their fishing, also popular with gulls. in the fall it was a bloodbath with sealions violently thrashing and tossing salmon around. i suspect the fish pool there before heading further upstream where the river narrows, passes north wind wier and gets into the wild kent valley.
sometimes i wish i still had that little 12’ boat. i called her dreamboat annie.
While biking, I recently saw a group of cormorants sitting together (6-7) on a downed tree in the middle of the Sammamish River. A grey heron was nearby and these were smaller; I wasn't sure what they were until I got home and discovered cormorants actually are freshwater as well as saltwater birds. They were beautiful, and striking as there were so many clustered together.
I often see cormorants swimming, diving and spreading their wings on the rocks and buoys off Dune Peninsula Park in Tacoma. Really fun to watch and admire. At first I thought they were anhingas of which I’ve seen many in Florida. Apparently that is a common mistake. Wonderful birds both.
I remember the depiction in Ping, though I had forgotten the name of the book. I
think that people don't use the cormorant metaphor anymore because the average person has no idea what a cormorant is or that they exist. In the 1800s people were more attuned to the world around them as it appeared, not as mediated through electronic or even printed media, or as contrived by the entertainment industry. I once read that the average American living in the Victorian period saw fewer images in his or her lifetime than the average American currently living sees in a single day. Who has the time or bandwidth to look outside at cormorants?
At the same time cormorants have gotten a good deal of attention in some quarters where they have taken up residence in great numbers. They make noise, they don't smell very good, and--horrors--they eat a lot of fish in direct competition with recreational fishermen. Like Canada geese they can be a nuisance.
Personally I like seeing them in reasonable numbers, flying, perching, fishing, hanging their wings out to dry like anhingas.
David, Thanks for your thoughts. Your observation about what people used to know and now know is apt even though bird watching is bigger than ever, which still doesn't mean that few people know what a cormorant is, or better yet, their piscivorous ways.
Thanks for this one. When considering the big flap about cormorants, don't get hoodwinked or forget that many of our species most often despise what we most resemble. Readers would also be advised to check our bias while enjoying a look again at Marjorie Flack's 1933 "The Story of Ping" for its brilliant presentation of comorant fishery while facing head-on the characterization of human life along the Yangtze.
Years ago, when I commuted on the (old) 520 bridge to Kirkland on the bus, I used to love looking for cormorants and other birds as I crossed the bridge. The cormorants often lined up on the buoys that ran parallel to the bridge, one per buoy, usually with their wings outstretched, all the way across the lake. It felt like a welcoming party, especially since the old bridge was so low to the water so I was almost on level with the buoys.
As a biologist working on habitat restoration, I've heard more than once some blame cast on cormorants as the species preventing recovery of species like Chinook salmon. Like other piscivores, they're just trying to get by but they happen to be eating the same things we like to catch. I sense a bit of jealousy in their older descriptions as greedy; more likely, they are just super-efficient predators and that might be frustrating to the shoreside person fishing.
Correigh, Thanks for your insights. Sadly, as you know, what else is knew. Easier to blame the birds or the seals or the ... instead of curtailing one's own behaviors.
David
Cormorants were one of the first birds I learned to recognize. We’d see them perched on the ferry bumpers every time we crossed the Salish Sea for Christmas. If it were up to me, they’d be associated with holiday delight!
when i had my duwamish exploring boat a few years ago i regularly came across a cormornt colony behind the museum of flight and the boeing DC across from the fancy yacht building yard and just north of the turning basin. it was a busy spot for their fishing, also popular with gulls. in the fall it was a bloodbath with sealions violently thrashing and tossing salmon around. i suspect the fish pool there before heading further upstream where the river narrows, passes north wind wier and gets into the wild kent valley.
sometimes i wish i still had that little 12’ boat. i called her dreamboat annie.
While biking, I recently saw a group of cormorants sitting together (6-7) on a downed tree in the middle of the Sammamish River. A grey heron was nearby and these were smaller; I wasn't sure what they were until I got home and discovered cormorants actually are freshwater as well as saltwater birds. They were beautiful, and striking as there were so many clustered together.
I often see cormorants swimming, diving and spreading their wings on the rocks and buoys off Dune Peninsula Park in Tacoma. Really fun to watch and admire. At first I thought they were anhingas of which I’ve seen many in Florida. Apparently that is a common mistake. Wonderful birds both.
Funny, the first time I saw an Anhinga in Florida, I thought it was a cormorant.
I remember the depiction in Ping, though I had forgotten the name of the book. I
think that people don't use the cormorant metaphor anymore because the average person has no idea what a cormorant is or that they exist. In the 1800s people were more attuned to the world around them as it appeared, not as mediated through electronic or even printed media, or as contrived by the entertainment industry. I once read that the average American living in the Victorian period saw fewer images in his or her lifetime than the average American currently living sees in a single day. Who has the time or bandwidth to look outside at cormorants?
At the same time cormorants have gotten a good deal of attention in some quarters where they have taken up residence in great numbers. They make noise, they don't smell very good, and--horrors--they eat a lot of fish in direct competition with recreational fishermen. Like Canada geese they can be a nuisance.
Personally I like seeing them in reasonable numbers, flying, perching, fishing, hanging their wings out to dry like anhingas.
David, Thanks for your thoughts. Your observation about what people used to know and now know is apt even though bird watching is bigger than ever, which still doesn't mean that few people know what a cormorant is, or better yet, their piscivorous ways.
Thanks for this one. When considering the big flap about cormorants, don't get hoodwinked or forget that many of our species most often despise what we most resemble. Readers would also be advised to check our bias while enjoying a look again at Marjorie Flack's 1933 "The Story of Ping" for its brilliant presentation of comorant fishery while facing head-on the characterization of human life along the Yangtze.
A question I often ask myself....
“Why do we (humans) think we exist on a higher moral plane or level of success than animals? “.