Confusing cormorant conundrum? Boffins now claim it is cut and dry

FOR several weeks my boat was marooned by an engine breakdown on the Royal Canal a few kilometres east of Mullingar.

The other day I was driving down the tow-path to check up on it when I noticed, out of the side of my eye, something strange in the water. A dark, snake-like object was moving down the middle of the canal.

It was, of course, the head and neck of a cormorant. Sometimes these birds have the disconcerting habit of swimming with their bodies submerged and only the head and neck in the air.