Tag: cormorant

Fens 10 The Wash

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Conclusion of our exploration of the Fens.

The Lincolnshire/Cambridgeshire/Norfolk Fens all drain into and were flooded by the sea of The Wash. A potted history: they were first drained by the Romans, reverted to a natural state after the fall of the Empire, and were again drained around 12C by monks, falling into disrepair around 16C after the Dissolution, and drained in on a larger scale in 17C, the period focused on in James Boyce’s book.

The Fens and their drainage machines are an ongoing enterprise to maintain a balance between sea and land, in this most fertile part of England. No wonder this part of Lincolnshire is called New Holland.

The Wash is now a major natural asset for migrating and indigenous birds. As a last hurrah for our explorations, we go close to the mouth of the River Witham at RSPB Freiston Shore. Again we stand on the sea wall looking out over The Wash – salt marsh on one side and fresh water lake on the other.

Along the sea wall at Freiston

A solitary cormorant stands in typical pose, amid black headed gulls and ducks.

On the landward side Boston Stump stands out proud (featured image), seaward there appears to be almost endless salt marsh, beach and then sea, with a misty Norfolk in the far distance.

I reflect that some of my ancestors played a part in this great drainage enterprise; the Fens are part of my own roots.

The dog was not impressed; there were cows on the sea wall. He dashed back towards the van.

Fishing below Barker Dam

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I spend some time watching the fishers in the rush of water where the outlet from Barker Dam merges into Buffalo Bayou to continue its journey to the sea.

The Great Blue Heron just stands in the water, motionless, waiting for what seems to be a rare opportunity.

The snowy egret stands on a rock or respectfully by the bank, away from the Great Blue. The technique is the same, waiting for an opportunity with intent concentration.

Finally, the cormorant swims in the water below the rush. From time to time he dives into the turmoil, swimming toward the current, often emerging with a fish in his beak.

There’s no doubt which is the most successful technique. A throng of around 10 cormorants is harvesting most of the fish. Heron and egret get the occasional consolation.

Cormorant 2

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We see cormorants quite commonly in UK, in Europe and in US. Few present themselves quite so conveniently as this one, on a post near the promenade at Southport’s Marine Lake.

  • Look left; nearby young herring gull
  • Look right
  • Scratch
Click to enlarge

Unfortunately the light was fading, and there was strong backlighting on the water, so texture on the back could be better.

See also Cormorant.

The Seabird’s Cry

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the seabird cryI’ve always enjoyed time spent by the sea, and particularly Britain’s cliffs and the plethora of seabirds to be seen there. Beeston Cliffs, St Abbs Head, South Stack, Duncansby Head, Summer Isles, cliffs of the South West of England and Wales, and more… So many places. Until recently I never questioned if these great massings of seabirds would ever not be there. Yet they are in perilous decline and danger, as are seabird colonies the world over. Industrial fishing, pollution and climate breakdown are presenting insuperable problems to many species. The spectre of multiple extinctions looms.

In his magnificent and illustrated book The Seabird’s Cry, Adam Nicolson takes us through the glory of common species of seabirds, the threats they face and the effects on populations, mostly declining. It is a story at the same time beautifully told, yet almost impossible to bear.

A few of my notes will give a flavour, or skip to the summary below.

  • Fulmar, the most streamlined of birds. Able to fly without effort in a gale, which would ground most birds. Fulmars once supported the population of the remote island of St Kilda, at times the only source of food.
  • Puffin, specialised for deep diving in search of fish and not good flyers. Live in colonies of burrows, and rear but a single egg at a time. Many populations have been decimated or lost, such as the Westman Islands off Iceland.
  • Kittiwake lives on high cliffs and the open sea, good flyers but shallow divers. Call sounds like their name: kittiwaaak. Persecution in 19c led to the 1869 Seabird Preservation Act. Populations in steep decline.
  • Gulls, opportunists, shore birds. White camouflage for taking prey. Prolific breeders, cannibals, expanding on land where they can find food. 34 species.
  • Guillemot, deep diver, long beak. Very close nesting on cliff in families.
  • Cormorant /Shag, bird of greed. Dark one. Shallow diver. Need to dry feathers to restore insulating properties, hence the characteristic ‘wings out’ stance. Many die young. Expanding inland.
  • Shearwater, dip wingtips in water hence name. Related to Fulmar. Sleep in burrows, wait for night cover before entering. Many migrate to southern hemisphere. Strong sense of smell.
  • Gannet, plunge divers. Dense colonies, eg currently on Bass Rock. Ferociously competitive. Currently booming in North Atlantic.
  • Razorbill, chicks fledge with father at sea. Declining. Relative of the extinct great auk. Retells the story of the great auk.
  • Albatross, among the largest birds with 11ft wingspan. Live by the wind, travelling many thousands of miles. Follow ships and have inspired many sailors. Live for many years and whiten as get older. Declining, spectre of extinction.

Summary

In his last chapter Nicolson summarises The Seabird’s Cry.

Populations of seabirds across the globe have fallen by 2/3 in 60 years. Just cormorants and gannets buck the trend. The culprits are fishing practices, pollution and climate change. His words express this so much better than I can:

“There are no grounds for complacency… The great extinction is going on every day and the rate of change in the nature of the oceans is almost certainly too rapid for many of the inbuilt resilience mechanisms to cope.”

“The grand cry of a seabird colony, rolling in its clamour around the bays and headland of high latitudes, will become a memory, its absence unnoticed because people will not miss what is not there. ”

“What is to be done? Only all that can be done… the rate at which we are changing the atmosphere and the ocean, both its temperature and its acidity, needs to be brought under control. “

At stake is humanity’s whole relationship with nature. Are we to destroy the paradise we were born into, because we got too many, too unthinking and too greedy?

“The seabirds and their colonies were and are a last bastion of wholeness…”

A necessary, poetic and disturbing book.

Featured image of northern royal albatross by Benchill [Public domain]

Cormorant flying

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I have a new respect for those wonderful images of birds in flight that you find on the blogs of various photographers. Since there were so many cormorants flying around at the location of my last post, could I get any decent results with my little travel zoom (Panasonic DMC-TZ80)?

Of course, the camera speed is not fast enough to freeze the bird in flight (see featured image of blurred flying cormorant), so you need to focus and pan as you take the photograph. Easier said than done, the speed at which these birds fly. I soon learned to track them as they came round in a part-circle, so was already ‘with’ them when ready to shoot – and use of ‘burst mode’ gave the maximum chance of one decent frame.

Then there’s the question of focusing – if you just ‘autofocus’ against a complex background that seems to give lots images of blurred flying cormorants against blurred backgrounds. I think the camera just has too much to do in the time.

I settled on just trying the birds that were flying a little higher, so that the background was just a plain blue sky. Sorting through all the many shots taken later on, there did seem to be one or two half decent (click to enlarge a bit).

There’s no doubt a good pro with the best equipment can do a thousand times better, but then he/she can’t put it away in a pocket.

Cormorant

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We often see cormorants in the UK, usually the odd specimen perched fishing from a log or rock, sometimes in small groups. It was quite refreshing, then, to come across a large group of hundreds of these birds, perched in trees around a lake at the Dranse estuary nature reserve near Thonon-les-Bains on the southern shores of Lac Leman (Lake Geneva).

cormorants dranse.JPG

There was a constant to-ing and fro-ing, with a smaller number of them directly fishing from the lake surface or in characteristic wing-drying pose.

The size of this population is a testament to the health of the waters and fish populations in Lac Leman.

Of course, you will also see cormorants by the sea, as they can live with both salt water and fresh water.