Archive for March, 2020
My Cormorant Tree
Posted by Dev Baul - 13/03/20 at 07:03 am
![](https://amazelia.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/cormorants-2.jpg?w=1024)
My first brush with cormorants was in a Bengali rhyme ‘পানকৌড়ি পানকৌড়ি ডাঙায় উঠনা’ – ‘Cormorant(Pankouri), O Cormorant stay in the water’ . Interestingly the Bengali moniker connotes a glutton or a diver. There can not be an apter description of this bird’s behavior – it is a voracious eater and moves around in deep waters like an otter. In Bengal, fish farmers lay crisscross ropes laden with colored swags above their ponds to keep away the cormorants.
A Satyajit Ray story was my second encounter , wherein Ray talked about how cormorants would use their lungs as ballast tanks as in a submarine to float up or dive into the water. Much later in life did I learn about a US defense department research project in which a submersible aircraft (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_Cormorant) called Cormorant was to be developed. While inside a submarine tube the aircraft’s wings would be folded around itself and while floating up to the surface , wings would unfold in preparation for launch – very similar to the Cormorant Bird’s under-water and in the air movements. Is that Science imitating life !!
![](https://amazelia.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/flying_submarine_cormorant_aircraft-.jpeg?w=529)
Photo Credits Mike Hanlon ( https://newatlas.com/the-cormorant-mpuav/5372/)
My third meeting with cormorants in the world of words was in the least likely of places – in a Bond Novel, where one would not expect to accost birds with feathers. In “You Only Live Twice” Bond takes refuge in a Japanese fishing community. Fisherwomen out there would not use nets or lines – instead, they would use their cormorants for fishing. A snare would be put around the cormorant’s neck to prevent it from swallowing bigger fish. The bird with a fish in its gullet would be brought back to the boat and made to spit the fish out into the bin of ‘fresh catch of the day’!!
![](https://amazelia.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/cormorant-fishing.jpg?w=400)
Photo by Frédéric Lemaréchal, alias Maboko – Originally from fr. Wikipedia;
Having grown up in antediluvian pre-internet times, I did not get to see a cormorant in a picture or in flesh and feathers till I hit my early 20s. From my reads, a certain mystical imagery had developed in my mind about cormorants. Thus, the first sighting at Joka Marshes, my institute campus in Kolkata) was laced with a sense of underwhelm. Here was a bird with an ungainly body, dull feathers and an awkward low flight. But then it started growing on me – I started noting and marvelling at its aircraft-like take off with run-up ; its landing using its webbed feet as landing gear; the periscope-like look of the head with the body inside the water; the sudden disappearing dive and the equally sudden erupting reappearance 100 feet away. The voyeuristic affair continues – hopefully till I hit the bucket.
I am a newbie birdwatcher and get fascinated by the things that seasoned birders would brush off with a knowing smile. Paths of cormorants and mine have crossed a few times, but no other meeting has been as unexpected as the one in the heart of a desert in Dubai. It was an artificial lake made with desalinated sea-water. The lake was in a large residential complex. This was not an aviary, but a whole ecosystem created with desalinated water !! I have recorded Bulbuls, Cormorants, Lapwings, Hoopoes in Dubai – most are introduced or vagrant species not native to Dubai.
Collective noun for a group of cormorants is an unusual but fitting word – sunning. Sunning is what a sunning of cormorants needs to keep doing when out of water. A cormorant with its wings spread out in a sunning position is the most photographed pose of the bird
![](https://amazelia.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/cormorant-sunning.jpg?w=960)
Protagonist of our story, My Cormorant Tree is housed in Rabindra Sarobar , an artificial lake created by the British – a creation as grand as the Victoria Memorial or the Howrah Bridge. I guess it is home to some 500+ cormorants and they regularly compel me to interrupt my walk and watch their antics. That my cormorant tree is thriving in a lake surrounded by a concrete jungle is a most gratifying bliss.
![](https://amazelia.files.wordpress.com/2020/03/cormorants-13-1.jpg?w=1024)
If you enjoyed this article please consider staying updated via RSS. Links to your own social media pages could be added here.