ON THE WILD SIDE The fisher king

THIS is a good time to take to the seas in search of our oceanic mammals. Whales and dolphins are very active at this time of year as they follow the fish inshore.

This large and very strange all-black bird traditionally makes his home around our coasts.

They crop up all over the world – all of Europe, the eastern US, India, South Africa, east Asia and south eastern Australia.

His name comes from the words “sea crow” or “charcoal sea raven”, but the fact they are large and black is where the similarities to corvids end.

It may not be uncommon to see these huge birds preening on a log or wall over any inland body of water in the UK, but this is a fairly recent occurrence.

The great cormorant was hunted, allegedly nearly to extinction all over

Europe. Elizabeth I saw them as vermin, and ordered them to be destroyed. They will eat a quarter of their body weight in fish in an hour.

Impressive, but less so if you happen to own an ornamental pond, a fish hatchery, sporting lakes….

Their fishing skill also won them admirers. Kings Charles I and James I employed a “master of cormorants”, a man with a trained bird who would catch fish and take them to his master. A rope around its neck would stopped it swallowing the huge meals.

One cormorant can live for 20 years, so look after your bird and you won’t have to pick up a fishing rod for ages.

The cormorant is often considered a lazy and greedy bird, and only hunts for about an hour each day.

They dive for 30 seconds at a time, and up to 20ft deep, chasing prey with their torpedo-like bodies and snaky necks. They are often seen trying to swallow enormous fish. They then spend the rest of the day sunning themselves.

You might see them stretching their wings as they can’t fly when they are wet. As they don’t produce much waterproof oil, they spend the day drying off. Being so good at your job that you only need to work for an hour can’t be bad!

OUR subject today is a very polarising character. Some love him, some hate him, others fear him. Today I’m going to be talking about one of the two British birds we have in the cormorant family, the great cormorant. The other is the shag, but we’ll get to him again. Meanwhile, let’s find out why a group of cormorants might be called a “gulp”.