Standing on the back patio, waiting for the sun to come out. Hopefully the overcast will burn off in a couple hours and I’ll be able to ride to the beach today. What are those swimming birds that hang out on the pilings with the pelicans? They do not really dive for fish from the air the same way the pelicans do. They swim around and disappear underwater for minutes at a time. They perch on the decaying pilings and spread their wings and push out their chests like they just won something important. Oh no, wait…. they are drying their wings off. Let’s run some Google searches and some Wikipedia look-ups and discover that they are double-crested cormorants…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diRJJL8EISoThe cormorant has been used for centuries for fishing. Trained cormorants hang out with the fisherman and his boat and do their thing, swimming for fish. There is a snare tied around the cormorants’ necks that keep them from swallowing the big fish. It can eat all the little fish it wants but when it gets a big fish stuck in it’s throat, it comes to the fisherman to take the fish out.
Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Cormorant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormorant_fishing