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Sunday, July 29, 2007

Small Feet, Big Steps

We took Dante to the beach near the Bacara today. Nothing could better describe the afternoon that the following photos.



You may notice the large black birds in the last few frames of the slideshow. (Well, technically, the last two are me, shirtless, attempting to wash sand off Dante at the showers and getting my torso clawed in the process. But the birds are damn close to the end, let me tell you.) The birds, which Spencer thinks may be cormorants of some sort, squatted on rocks at the edge of the beach, looking juts a little like unpleasant old women, perhaps those who cluster together and do sinister things in Greek mythology. They didn't seem the least bit intimidated by my presence and only set out for the ocean when they felt hungry.

Despite their shiny wings, the cormorants — or possible pseudo-cormorants — walked to water instead of flying. Their gait struck me as rather odd, so I shot a video of one returning back to the rocks. Here it is, in three installments.







Don't get me wrong. Dante was by far the start of the outing. But there's something just slightly creepy in the way that those birds walked, almost as if they were poorly mimicking how humans move.

3 comments:

  1. Yes, cormorans they are. I live in Florida, or did up till about a week ago and they are everywhere, them and their freshwater brethren the anhingas. They are kinda strange birds; you missed their biggest performance though. They swim, not just in the water but under it. Very impressive.

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  2. I'm not sure you've been privy to my particular adventure with these oil-lacking birds that seem to have absolutely zero desire to survive.

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=s-ZKvNA98Zs

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  3. Yikes. That's some Animal Planet stuff. I have the desire to reprimand those dogs, even though they were just being dogs.

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