Kip’s Comments - September 29, 2024

Memory Trigger Bird

This morning as I sat listening to the message at the "Church of the Open Stream" (today was really "Church of the Pond), I had my eyes watching the sky and my camera at the ready. Out of nowhere a double-crested cormorant did a low altitude flyby. Since I have many cormorant pictures, I did not record too many flight images - just enough for “bird in flight” practice. In fact, I watched the cormorant fly to the south and thought that was the end of it.

Imagine my thrill as the cormorant banked to the west and dumped air like a goose or duck. I was hoping the cormorant would land on the water, but it did more than that. The cormorant was in glide mode coming right at me as I was shooting picture after picture.

As you can see in this sequence, the double-crested cormorant put on a brief but impressive show for me. Not long after setting down on the water the cormorant again took flight with a determined effort heading to the northeast.

Double-crested cormorants are birds not often sought after by most people. Anglers think cormorants have a severe negative impact on fish (maybe they do). The birds are not particularly attractive. The species just isn't high-ranking around here. So why did a cormorant sighting get me going?

During a trip to the Everglades I was excited to see cormorants - along with so many other bird species wintering in the glades. When I see cormorants in NE Iowa, I tend to remember walking the boardwalk in the Everglades and seeing cormorants, egrets, herons, anhingas, so many other birds, and of course gators. Interestingly, we did not see pythons, even though that was one of the reasons we were there - to help remove the exotic/invasive species. That is another story; today we are discussing this double-crested cormorant.