affinity photo The Needles, Isle of Wight

[Kasper-V]

I had the privilege of being given a ride on the Yarmouth Lifeboat last week, and took my camera -- naturally! These photos are small ones I posted on Facebook; if/when I come to print them, I'll re-edit them at full size (and maybe develop them a little differently).

 

The Needles chalk stacks, and the lighthouse:

 

Scratchell's Bay and the cliffs

 

Cormorants. They very considerately arranged themselves according to the Rule of Odds: a group of three and a group of one. (I wonder what he did to upset the others?)

[jer]

If I was going to adopt a Cormorant it would be the lonely one! Are these the same Cormorant types we have this side of the Atlantic that stretch open their wings for a very long time to dry them? We call them Anhingas and they actually swim underwater fishing for, say 20 or more yards before popping back to the surface (unlike dipping ducks/geese).

Ah, well, to the point of the matter... your photos are spectacular in subject, texture and tone. You chose a lifeboat ride that provided you with outstanding view of beauty!

[GarryP]

Who's to say that the cormorant that's by itself is lonely? Maybe the others were acting badly and he's deliberately keeping out of their way.

Of the three together, the one with its head down could be in a huff (or crying?) and the other two could be looking wistfully towards the one by itself wishing they could join it again. And the one by itself has a bit of a "talk to the wing 'cos the face ain't listening" attitude about it.

Just another way of looking at the situation is all.

[Kasper-V]

These are Phalacrocorax carbo, or so I'm told -- the Great Black Cormorant, and probably the same one you have, jer. (We also have two or three kinds of gull, but not the noisy greedy ones that steal your burger.) They do dry their wings, but most of these must have dried out before we arrived. Just the odd damp one, as you see.

 

 

GarryP, there are actually dozens and dozens of the critters, but I felt like being picky when I took that one.

 

 

 

(These two shots are thumbnails from RAW, which I haven't developed, hence the lack of contrast.)

[retrograde]

Cool shots. I will be heading to IOW next May and hope to checkout the Needles area.

[Kasper-V]

You'll be able to book a boat trip from Yarmouth harbour, or possibly from Alum Bay, retrograde. Unless you have your own boat, of course  !

[John Rostron]

On 19/07/2017 at 10:01 PM, jer said:

We call them Anhingas and they actually swim underwater fishing for, say 20 or more yards before popping back to the surface (unlike dipping ducks/geese).

 

Anhingas are not Cormorants (but they are related). There are several species of true Cormorants on your side of the pond. We have just two. The Great Cormorant and the Shag, which does not get as far east as the Needles. They all have this behaviour of appearing to 'dry their wings', but recent thought is that they are warming up in the sun (the sea is cold and they do not keep a  layer of air under their feathers, like most seabirds.

[retrograde]

On 7/21/2017 at 1:04 PM, Kasper-V said:

You'll be able to book a boat trip from Yarmouth harbour, or possibly from Alum Bay, retrograde. Unless you have your own boat, of course  !

 

Cheers for that info Kasper. No boat just rental car. ;-)

[jer]

Okay, one more OT item on Cormorants; just came across this while reading (yeah, a real book, for cryin' out loud)...

 

From The Wonder of Birds by Jim Robbins.

'Some birds can count. ... In the 1970s, biologist Pamela Egremont watched as Chinese fishermen on the Li River used cormorants to catch fish. The fishermen place a neck ring on the birds, which cinches their throats tightly so they can't swallow, and they are then trained to return with a fish in their mouth. The birds are allowed, however, to eat every eighth fish. When they return to the fishermen after the seventh fish, Egremont wrote in a journal article, they "stubbornly refuse to move again until their neck ring is loosened" so they can eat the eighth fish as usual. "They ignore an order to dive and even resist a rough push or a knock, sitting glum or motionless on their perches. One is forced to conclude that these highly intelligent birds can count up to seven."'

 

This is in the 10th chapter, Bird Brain - Human Brain, where it explains that in the last 10 years scientists have re-evaluated brains in birds and now conclude they are much smarter than previously thought. The old description bird-brain no longer applies.

 

[Kasper-V]

If anyone's interested, here's a brief (under 2 minutes) video of the lifeboat trip. It's not Affinity, but it was made with a Serif product, Movieplus X6:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHRC08tE8OM&t=12s