The Cormorant

The cormorant is the long, lean and limber bird that I remember from rides in the rowboat on those summer days at the beach. They were discernable in the water only by their long black stalks of necks poking and stretching out of the water, the long thin orange bill forming a near perfect right angle to the graceful curved "w" of the neck. It was only while they were sunbathing on the rocks that they could be seen in all their glory. Unlike ducks, the cormorant does not possess the oily feathers that make it immune to the cold cold water. Like human hair, the cormorant's down absorbs the water and takes a long time to lose it--to dry off. They don't look too happy about it: it seems like an arduous process.