Cormorants cause concern

I WAS travelling up the Shannon on my boat the other day. It was a stretch of river I hadn’t been on for a few years and one thing that struck me was the increase in the number of cormorants.

Practically every buoy had a cormorant sitting on the top and the new green paint was already discoloured by droppings.

Many of the birds had their wings spread out in that characteristic cormorant pose. Their reason for doing this was a cause of great controversy at one time but more recent research has shown it’s not to help them digest fish or to regulate their body temperature. The most obvious explanation is the correct one. They are drying their wings. It seems cormorant plumage lacks the waterproofing oils of other diving birds; it has been sacrificed to give them more speed when they’re swimming under water after fish.