An Interim Post with a Bird on Top….

47 Replies

There is no point in me competing with Mr Devine for the best photograph of a cormorant award. I would not win, because a) I am not so handy with a camera and b) The cormorants in Devon are just plain lazy. They do not pose like their Norfolk cousins. I found this one gazing out to sea unperturbed by my presence.

cormorant-blog

He was probably wondering why the silly woman on the shore was taking a photograph of the vast expanse of sky above his head, and he indicated these thoughts by giving me a cock-eyed withering look….

cormorant2-blog

Okay….so it’s a crow on a fence post… whatever…..

Anyhow…. I will be back with another enlightening blog post very soon, possibly before the 21st November – I know! Go me! There will be gold. There will be calligraphy. There will be insults, AND [drum roll] there will be a book on a chair!! Maybe two books on a chair!!! Indeed, a plethora of excitement awaits us…. so I’d better get on and do that then.

UPDATE:- The difference between cormorants and shags…..

Yes, they are slightly different. I might have a shag here?

47 thoughts on “An Interim Post with a Bird on Top….”

  3. Princess

    May I commend you on your cormorant… Tho we tend to refer to them as a “Shag” down here… and are often referrenced after getting drenched in a downpour of rain as in… “I’m as wet as a shag on a rock” or pole or Mr Device’ s Groyne as the case may be. I’m saying it a lot at the moment as the rain beats heavily on the tin roof I can hardly hear myself typing… It’s thumping down outside… looks like persisting for another 24 hrs…

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  4. Scarlet Post author

    Ms Prinny, I am surprised that the Brits didn’t adopt the alternative name for the cormorant…. think of the fun the Carry-On team could have had with that one.
    Meanwhile, it has been nothing but mizzling in Devon for the past month, nothing dramatic, just permanent drizzle – gloomsome.
    Sx

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  6. Jon

    The common cormorant (or shag)
    Lays eggs inside a paper bag,
    You follow the idea, no doubt?
    It’s to keep the lightning out.

    But what these unobservant birds
    Have never thought of, is that herds
    Of wandering bears might come with buns
    And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.

    – Christopher Isherwood

    Jx

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  7. IDV

    Hooray! The Cormorant!

    It’s much better than I thought it was going to be. I was expecting a blurry, distant blob that might generously be made out to be a cormorant. I shouldn’t have doubted you.

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      1. Scarlet Post author

        I am always very excited when I see a cormorant, I know not why, Mr Devine, and when I took this shot I believed my readers would be as thrilled…… And then you found several flocks of them, which I have now stolen 🙂
        Sx

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  9. 63mago

    “Kormoran, komm’ doch ran !” is one of the poems the sadly unknown master A. HAU discarded, when he tried to write under the influence of narcotics in 1940s Andorra. It may have been filed under his “animal erotica”, but I’m not sure. In his collected works the editor gives “Dschingis Khan, komm’ doch ran !” as quasi official result of Hau’s drug experiments, which the master describes as totally unsatisfying, after all.

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  10. lisleman

    You gave us a nice bird. Unlike the bird I get in traffic at times. Please do another post before November, I need a good distraction from this insane election crap spread all over social media. Can you believe Miss Piggy came up in a Presidential debate? Too odd to believe.

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    1. Scarlet Post author

      The bird in traffic???? Ah, an Americanism?? ‘Get the bird’ in English means to be jeered at or to be dismissed.
      I am avoiding all social media now, Bill, apart from blogging. I am in lock down. I want to sail through to Christmas without knowing who the new President is. Had enough of politics.
      Sx

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  13. Scarlet Post author

    I am updating this post because cormorants and shags are actually two different species of bird, and it has been bothering me. I think mine is actually a shag.
    Sx

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  16. nick

    Reminded me too of the Christopher Isherwood poem. Cormorants are of course members of the phalacrocoracidae family. Bet you didn’t know that.

    I’m quivering with anticipation re the two books on a chair. The world of photography is talking about nothing else. I gather the event is already sold out and tickets are circulating on the black market for upwards of £5,000.

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    1. Scarlet Post author

      Crikey, I meant to post something by now, Nick…. but I have been delayed by looking up long words on the Internet and thus have been thoroughly distracted.
      Sx

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  18. Pat Mackay

    To my mind you are an excellent photographer. I love the clarity of both posts photos and hope you will do more. Did you mention Lynton? One of these days you really should push the boat out – as it were – and make Minehead.

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    1. Scarlet Post author

      I love Lynton, Pat! And I liked Minehead when I visited so another trip in definitely on the cards. Maybe when Daphne is over next, because I would like to meet her too.
      Sx

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