Edition:
April 4, 2008
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Columnist
“Larry.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t like to be crowded when I’m flying. Your slipstream is messing me up. Move over!”
“Jeesch,”
“Larry?”
“Yeah?”
“When we gonna get there?”
“In about 10 minutes.”
“Are they gonna shoot at us this year?”
“Yeah, probably; but don’t worry, they never hit us. They just want us to move on to Lake Elsinore.”
“But it’s scary! I get crazy and can’t fish.”
“Nah, you get used to it. Now get ready, we’re gonna land.”
It was about 4 p.m. on March 1 that I saw the latest cormorant armada descend onto their fishing waters in Canyon Lake. Dorothy and I were standing at the big windows fronting Holiday Bay at the Lodge. We were waiting to greet the Celtic Tenors and their entourage who were to perform that night.
A large flock, perhaps 200 birds or so, was skimming down the lake from the north. A smaller contingent half that size entered our view from the East Bay. The two flocks met and merged, wheeling about until they became one, then settled onto the water surrounding several white pelicans already swimming in the bay.
These visitors are double-crested cormorants, probably named for two small white-feathered plumes sprouting from their heads during the breeding season. There are 40 species of cormorants scattered over our planet. They range in size from the 18-in. pygmy cormorant, endemic to Southeastern Europe to Southwestern Asia, to the nearly extinct 40-in. flightless Galapagos cormorant found only in its namesake islands.
When cormorants swim on the surface, their bodies are nearly submerged, their beaks are thrust forward and the flock moves as one. Presumably, they know when they are over fish because individuals will suddenly roll forward and, in one smooth motion, dive beneath the surface. They emerge some distance away from where they went under, often with a fish in their beak, and continue swimming serenely along with the flock.
Thirty-nine species of cormorants can fly in the sky. Only one, the Galapagos, cannot. But all 40 species fly wonderfully well underwater. Okay, so they’re technically swimming, usually using their webbed feet as well as their wings; but when you watch documentaries featuring underwater fishing birds, penguins, gannets, puffins, et al, they appear to be flying. And they do it well enough to chase down fish in the fishes’ own element. And the Galapagos cormorant, evolving in his archipelago mixing-bowl of life forms, lost the need to fly. So abundant was its food supply that its wings, like those of the penguin, shrank to become the swim fins that help propel it so effectively under water.
Our cormorants suffer no such limitations. I have seen lone birds flying, some small groups of three and four, and some strings of 20 or more, trailing each other through the sky. And then there are the huge flocks, gliding just above the surface as they prepare to land and chase down and devour Canyon Lake’s fish.
A recent article in The Californian by staff writer Aaron Claverie revealed to the outside world that cormorants have, indeed, returned to Canyon Lake. Claverie’s article pointed out what all Canyon Lakers already know; these “pesky birds” arrive in winter and depart as summer begins, after feeding on lots of Canyon Lake fish. During cormorant season, residents may hear from time to time the boom and whistle of pyrotechnics echoing across our waters as harassment of the birds begins in an effort to get them to move on. In years past, this practice often sounded like the Battle of Lake Erie.
In the opening scenes of the movie, “Tortilla Flats,” based on Steinbeck’s now-classic story, Pelon (Spencer Tracy) tells his friend, Pablo (Akim Tamiroff), to go throw rocks at the fishermen down at the docks unloading the day’s catch and they’ll throw fish at him. That way they’ll have something to eat. Pablo replies that they should maybe train a pelican to fish for them. "No, no," responded Pelon. "The pelican will eat the fish. You are dumb, Pablo! Go get some rocks."
Not so fast, Pelon. Can cormorants be domesticated and used by humans to fish for them?
One of my first cultural lessons as a child in about the 1st grade was about how Chinese fishermen used tame cormorants to fish for them. There was a picture in the book of an ancient Chinese in a small boat with a cormorant perched on a gunwale. It had a cord tied to a leg and a silver ring around its neck and a small fish in its beak. The cord, so the story went, prevented the bird from rejoining its flock and the silver ring prevented it from swallowing its catch. The author went on to say that, occasionally, the fisherman would remove the ring and let his partner eat a fish it caught. I was mightily impressed with that bird!
Fishing with cormorants is still a widespread practice in many Asian countries – and the custom, now considered a sport akin to falconry, has spread to the West. England, for example, embraced this practice as a sporting activity late in the 19th century. And that’s not all; white pelicans, otters, sucker fish and octopods have and are used to catch fish. So, Pablo wasn’t nearly as dumb as Pelon painted him.
The double-crested cormorant breeds and nests from San Francisco all the way up to the Aleutian Islands. They are the only cormorants found on the inland waters of Canada and the United States. While they are now abundant, having suffered disastrous reductions in population decades ago, they are still protected by law. These voracious fish predators can, however, be encouraged to leave the area if they are around in numbers detrimental to local fish populations.
When you hear the booms and whistles rolling up from the lake you’ll know that time has come.
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