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Cormorants are not the most popular of birds
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Rural Reading - Cormorant in park was spectacular

By Adrian Lawson
February 12, 2010

The humble blackbird isn’t the most spectacular of bird, the male is jet black, the female is an inconspicuous brown, good for hiding while sitting on the nest.

There is nothing remarkable about them, not until the male starts to sing.

Then one of the most beautiful songs in the world of birds fills the air. The fact that they are so well adapted to our parks and gardens makes them even more enjoyable – I would think that every house in Reading is within range of a singing blackbird.

As spring is now approaching the dawn chorus has begun. It’s mostly robins but last week the song thrushes joined in. This week blackbirds were singing along my street. It really brightened my day to hear them.

It was light as I set off and a little while later the sun was high in the sky and it was almost warm.

By that time I was in Prospect Park by the pond and there, in among the ducks, was a cormorant.

Cormorants are not the most popular of birds as they are dark and ugly and eat all the fish. But they are not ugly at all. This one, swimming nervously about the pond, shone iridescent green in the sunlight.

He was close enough that I could see the soft grey fuzz that formed a subtle mane over the long neck. He fixed me with a cold piercing stare which, accompanied by the sight of a three inch long powerful hooked beak gave the bird an air of menace.

The feathers over the wings were like overlapping scales of bronze and it decided that diving for fish was out while I stood there. It hauled itself out on to the island and hung its wings out to dry.

This is a distinctive characteristic of cormorants, but not one I have seen in the pond in my local park before.

The bird looked absolutely spectacular – far more attractive than the common view of them flying over or fishing far out from shore. It is something that would go a long way to improving their public relations. If only they sang like the blackbird does.

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Cormorants are not alien, they are a resident bird of the UK. They are more common inland now for two reasons, the fish stocks in coastal waters have been decimated by overfishing by humans, and they find the lakes we fill with fish for sport a good place to find food. They are fish eating predators and anglers can't bear to see them eating the fish they want to use for sport. By helping reduce fish stocks from our overstocked waters they are helping to restore the balance of nature and maybe allow some invertebrates to thrive, which might help increase the number of birds that breed in summer. So Cormorants are good for the environment, unlike anglers.

szegerely, reading
20/02/2010 at 15:27

Well globbits, if you didn't derive your 'pleasure' from torturing animals by sticking metal hooks into their mouths and then hauling them out of their natural habitat I wold have some sympathy for you.

As it is I don't. The 'alien' species in the waterways is not the bird that has surrvived for millenia by hunting fish for food but sadistic people who gain their fun by killing animals for pleasure.

whitespirit
14/02/2010 at 19:42

as an angler i have seen the devastation that this alien species, now all too resident on the mainland, can wreak. they can decimate fish stocks in short order and having had one in my arms, following it taking my bait intended for a Pike last year, I can testify that they are nasty, horrible birds with razor sharp beaks. they well deserve their nickname of "the black death"

they do not belong in the UK and should be aggressively culled imo