Bird of the Month:
by john mcewen illustrated by carry akroyd
It is common knowledge that birds are descendants of the dinosaurs. And it’s easy to imagine in the case of the cormorant ( Phalacrocorax carbo), with its reptilian neck and head; its black plumage, with tinged bronze and green feathers demarcated like armour-plating; legs set back to demand an upright carriage; and notably stiff-quilled tail. The earliest classified bird, Gansus yumenensis, dating back 120 million years, is similarly structured.
That it is black and frequently stands with wings spread to dry in an inclusively ‘clerical or judicial way’ (Mark Cocker, Birds Britannica) is no doubt why John Milton has Satan use it as one of his guises in Paradise Lost: it stands prominently on the tree of life to survey the ‘Heav’n on Earth’ that was the garden of Eden.
Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life, The middle tree and highest there that grew, Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life Thereby regain’d, but sat devising death To them who liv’d; nor on the virtue thought Of that life-giving plant, but only us’d For prospect, what well us’d had been the pledge Of immortality… Paradise Lost, Book 4, 194-201
Cormorants are on the increase. It is now a familiar inland bird, with a growing population of 10,000 residents, quadrupled by a continental winter immigration. This is partly due to the extension of the range of its virtually identical southern subspecies, sinensis, to include England and Ireland. Sinensis is less of a seabird than its coastal cousin, but both will nest in tree colonies, rivers, reservoirs and fisheries; to such an extent that, despite legal protection since 1967, its growing population now means 3,000 are shot annually by licensees. Ironically, the ‘cormorant’ is a popular trout-fishing fly – so called for its black colour.
Familiarity to Londoners is indicative of this increase. Wild cormorants in and around the capital are a post-second World War phenomenon; breeding colonies more recent still. The first wild breeding was in 1984; by 2004, the figure had risen to 460 – and so it continues.
After swimming, sometimes to a depth of 30 feet, the birds dry their wings; only the outer feathers aren’t waterproof. This heraldic posture distinguishes Liverpool’s famous Liver Birds atop the Liver Building; and a spread-winged cormorant surmounts Merseyside Council’s coat of arms.
Milton, born in the City of London, probably saw James I’s aviary of pinioned cormorants on the Thames at Westminster, where they were used to catch fish. This practice – the bird’s neck ringed so it cannot swallow its catch – is still practised in the Orient, especially Japan.
Toulouse-lautrec had a pet cormorant called Tom. He walked with it on a lead and introduced it to absinthe, saying, ‘He takes after me; he has developed a taste for the stuff.’ When he promenaded with Tom by the sea, to scare old ladies, fellow artist Walter Sickert was not amused.