Travelling again – 5. River Spey estuary

29 Tuesday Jun 2021

Posted by Musiewild in Countryside views, Photography, Wildlife

Tags

common tern, Giant Hogweed, grey heron, house martin, Kingston, Maori holly, Moray Firth, olearia ilicifolia, osprey, pheasant, pillbox, Scottish Wildlife Trust, Spey Bay, Speyside Way

Saturday, 13th June was spent at the coast of the Moray Firth again, about fifteen miles to the east of where we had been the previous day. The hope was to see dolphins, especially in the afternoon. Spoiler alert – we did not. It was cold and windy for most of the morning but it warmed up and calmed down in the afternoon. Sue S, one of the Grant Arms Hotel’s local guides, was the leader of the people I was with for the day.

It took about an hour to get to Spey Bay, and I arrived a few minutes in advance of the meeting time, to find almost no-one else from the hotel there. It was at least 20 minutes before most people arrived – apparently there had been an accident on the road, causing a holdup, not long after I had passed through.

Just looking at this photo reminds me of how cold it was.

Waiting for others to arrive, I perused this board and thought how nice it would be to walk the Speyside Way – not that I can see myself ever doing it.

More evidence of how windy it was.

Looking landward, once we got going walking inland, with the river to our right:

On the water side, there was this growth on a distant islet. Our leader did not know what it was. It looks very exotic to me, and perhaps rather invasive. I could be quite wrong. Using my app, on this photo, suggests that it may be the first year of the biennial, Giant hogweed – if so it definitely is invasive, and very damaging to human health.

We were pleased to see an osprey, and I took rather a lot of photos, of which these are a fraction.

Not deliberately taken, but I was pleased to capture this including a Common tern.

It needed maximum zoom to see these swans

The osprey came back,

and I was just able to catch it in full dive for a fish in the sea. Earlier we had seen it successful, but I don’t know whether it was this time.

Further away there were dozens of terns.

And nearer, a grey heron.

Walking inland to get back to our cars eventually, we spotted a distant pheasant

and I hung around to catch this House martin leave its next (to which it had only just returned) to forage for its young. (‘Forage’ when it’s catching insects in the air?)

This was near the café. I have no idea what it is. A sundial of some sort? The sun was no-where to be seen to try it out.

Very, very distant gulls.

After a coffee to warm us up, we got in our cars to go to the other side of the estuary, at Kingston, and ate our picnic lunches, in my case just a banana, because with a full breakfast and three course dinner, that was all that was needed.

We were still in the Spey Bay reserve of the Scottish Wildlife Trust, here looking back to where we had been in the morning, the Moray Firth now to our left.

A pleasant spot to eat, and it’s warming up.

We wandered eastwards along the shore, looking out for dolphins, which had been seen there recently, but sadly there were none for us, nor anything else of particular wildlife interest. But it was warmer now, with just a light breeze, so it was pleasant just being there.

People started peeling off, and in the end it was just Sue and I left to walk slowly back via heathland…

… to the car park, where we saw this cultivated bush, which our different apps identified as Maori holly, *olearia ilicifolia*

Travelling again – 1. Friends

22 Tuesday Jun 2021

Posted by Musiewild in Countryside views, Travel

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

blue tit, Eskdale Hotel, goosander, grey heron, grey wagtail, Langholm, Langholm Castle, Langholm Church, Noble fir, oystercatcher, Tebay, Tootlepedal

It was so wonderful to be travelling again, and so weird to be mixing ‘naturally’ (almost) with people again. I could scarcely believe my holiday was happening as I set off, having not stayed away overnight since early March 2020, and now I’m back I can scarcely believe it has indeed happened. It is lovely to relive it through my photos, and here beginneth the recital of 13 days’ travel, roughly up the left-hand side of England, the right-hand side of Scotland, and vice versa on the way back. The first couple of days were comprised of close-packed visits to friends.

First stop from Somerset, on Monday 7th June, was Stafford, in time for lunch with Ellie, a former probation service colleague, and her two cats. Here she is with Skimble, who passes most of his time on the ironing board.

The following morning, I left quite early, to have coffee with Stan, with whom I used to make music when I lived in Staffordshire.

I was delighted to learn that his son, for a long time himself a professional musician in the Netherlands, was shortly getting married. This in fact happened three days ago, while I was on the road, nearly home, and I was very happy yesterday to watch a video of the music- (and musician-) packed event, which took place in the Anglican church in The Hague. The couple will shortly be coming to the UK for a church blessing here.

I had had the mad idea of meeting up with Peter, to have lunch with him in the Manchester area. Thank goodness he was not going to be free. Time and traffic constraints would have meant that I would have to have cancelled at no notice my diversion eastwards to visit 97-year-old Brian in Mytholmroyd, near Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire.

I stopped for a bite of lunch by my car high on the moors, about 15 minutes’ away from Brian’s, on the Halifax road. This photo does no justice to the beauty of the area, but I could not park where I would have liked to.

I had known Brian and his family when we both lived in Reading, Berkshire, in the 1970s. They had, as it were, adopted me when I moved into Quaker circles there. I used to make music with their daughter, Hazel, until she moved on marriage to Hebden Bridge, many years before her parents followed her. Sadly Hazel had been called away on urgent family business just before my arrival, but her husband, Jim, was on hand to welcome me, and took this photo, possibly the first of Brian and me together since we had a narrowboat holiday together, with his late wife and another friend, in the 1980s.

There followed a long drive all the way to Langholm in Dumfriesshire. I stopped briefly at the Tebay Service area,

and was pleased to find that the rather heavy traffic I had encountered thitherto thinned considerably from then on.

I checked into to the Eskdale Hotel for two nights at around 6 pm.

Tom and Ally, brother and sister-in-law of my London friend, Mary, joined me for dinner there.

(I should have used flash (2)! I promise you they are not really purple.)

I spent the next day with them. Tom writes a blog every day(!) and I asked first if we could just have a wander around the town so that I would be able to envisage the various places he mentions in it. As ever I snapped away, and here are some of the photos I took.

Their (Church of Scotland = Presbyterian) church

Its great – especially from a musician’s point of view – interior. Covid-necessary cleaning going on.

They have local birds to die for:

I think this is ‘just’ a Lady’s smock/cuckoo flower, but if Mr Tootlepedal disagrees, perhaps he would say so in the comments. (I’m not sure why I took it.)

I was pleased to catch this blue tit emerging from its nest in the tree trunk (not of the fir), which it did with great frequency, having bought food to its chicks.

This heron may or not be Tom’s Mr Grumpy, who appears regularly in his blog posts.

Elements of both primary and senior schools, not to mention the seniors looking on.

And a sneaky peak at Tom and Ally’s garden, of which more anon.

Hawkridge Reservoir

13 Thursday Aug 2020

Posted by Musiewild in Countryside views, Photography, Wildlife

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

Brean Down, Bridgwater, Callow Rock quarry, Ebsley, great crested grebe, great spruce bark beetle, green woodpecker, grey heron, Hawkridge Reservoir, Hawkridge Wood, Little egret, Mendip Hills, Ordnance Survey, quantockonline, Quantocks, Scarlet Pimpernel, scaup, sweet chestnut, tufted duck, Wessex Water, yaffle

Fancying a short late morning walk in the Quantock Hills, I googled and found this, thanks to Quantockonline.com

Ideal. Nice length, water, and a picnic spot with a viewpoint. Splendid. Hawkridge Reservoir was built about sixty years ago to provide water to Bridgwater. Technical details here.

50 minutes away from my home according to the satnav. I arrived after 75 minutes – yes, more roadworks. It’s August.

I had some difficulty identifying the car park. I saw a broad entry to what was evidently a car park, but it had no panel saying it was for the public, so I drove on. I found nothing after a couple of hundred metres, so turned back and parked in the one I had seen, where there was just one other car, and this view.

The panel confirmed that this was indeed Hawkridge Reservoir

The instructions said to go to the road and turn west, past a cottage on my left. So what did I do? I confused my east with my west. (My excuse was that, on both Ordnance Survey map and the plan, the car park is shown south of the road when in fact it was north – but I should have been more alert!) That cost me ten minutes. Having corrected my direction I found no cottage to my left, and made my way back to the car park. Faffing about for a while more

increased my loss of time to at least 30 minutes, until I realised that, according to the plan, my starting point should not have been at level of the the reservoir’s dam, but more than halfway along its length. ‘They’ had evidently changed the location of the car park since the plan had been drawn, and my OS map was also pretty old.

No public access to the top of the dam.

Hooray, I now knew where I was, at Point 4 on the plan, not Point 1.

These are either scaup or tufted ducks. They are just minuscule dots on the previous picture, and some fishermen in a boat are not much larger.

The weather forecast having predicted only a 3% chance of rain, I had not taken any rain protection. So it was as well that as I reached the bottom of the slope and this splendid sweet chestnut tree,

and found myself at this stile (check – yes!), when the rain came I was entering this wood.

It was lovely hearing the rain but feeling not a drop of it.

By the time I reached this gate and bridge it had stopped.

Through some private land, now labelled Ebsley Cottage.

Emerging into ‘wilder’ territory once more, I was delighted to see this Scarlet Pimpernel. It is not rare but I had not seen any for a while.

At Point 6 I got a bit cross with the walk description. Quite clearly according to the plan one was to turn left, south-westish. There was a field to the right, but its boundary was on the left, with a wire fence between field and a coniferous wood. But the words said, ‘follow field boundary on the right.’ What was one to do? I turned left and had the boundary on my left. I was TO the right of the fence. The alternative would have been to turn north, up a slope and have another field boundary on my right. And I’d have got lost again.

I now also had the reservoir to my left. Only fishermen (fisherpeople?) have access to the water’s edge, and beyond, on to the water. This is their clubhouse.

I had to turn away to my right for a bit (Point 8), and, as I turned sharp left a minute or so later, was delighted to be able to rest my elbows on a stile to take photos of this yaffle, aka green woodpecker, at a great distance, as it looked for insects in the grass. I took many photos, and couldn’t decide on the best, so here are two.

As I encountered these, I couldn’t help but think of my friend Zoe who is always very cautious around cattle. With her words in my ears, I moved well south of them.

A lovely view ahead, spoiled by an ugly deforestation scar.

I turn round – they’re keeping an eye on me.

Above the scar is a flock of sheep.

A look back at the reservoir.

By the hedge there was a couple eating a picnic. Had I been nearer to them I would, with an explanation, have asked permission to take their photo, but an exchange of what the cliché calls ‘a cheery wave’ sufficed as greeting.

Down to the minor road, and to where I was to leave the circumnavigation of the reservoir to go up to the lime kiln, the viewpoint, and the picnic spot, for my late lunch.

Oh! Footpath closed.

And this explains why, and the reason for the ugly scar. The Great Spruce Bark Beetle.

I felt better about the scar now. And was not at a personal level as disappointed as I might have been. I was ready for my lunch, a Great Climb would have been ahead of me, (I have not mentioned hitherto that it was very hot) and I did not have my walking pole with me to help me down the later descent.

I walked on, thinking I should now see the space where the original car park would have been. Instead – yes – I found THE car park, a glorified lay-by, which had I continued another 300 metres I would have found. It had a nice view of the reservoir,

with some swans and a grey heron,

an information board,

and some people, in and out of cars. I walked on,

found the cottage, and the stile at Point 1, and sat on it to eat my picnic, with a lovely view,

and a better view of the swans.

The grey heron had moved to join its cousin, a little egret.

Difficult to get decent pictures at that distance, but there were also great crested grebes,

mallard ducks (?)

and the chance to get a better picture of the egret.

Back at my personal starting point in due course, I thought this quarry, way in the distance and over to my right, must be Callow Rock Quarry, near Cheddar, the entrance to which I have passed many times on the road, but never seen.

This panorama from ‘my’ car park takes in Wales, Brean Down and much of the Mendip Hills, including the above quarry.

It was time to move on to my other visit of the day.

Morocco 3

19 Thursday Mar 2020

Posted by Musiewild in Countryside views, Photography, Plants, Travel, Wildlife

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Agadir, Atlas Kasbah, Cap Rhir, Common Bulbul, dung beetle, Euphorbia, grey heron, Little egret, Marsh Harrier, Moorish Gecko, Moroccan Lizard-toed Gecko, Moroccan tea, Morocco, Northern Bald Ibis, Oued Tamri, Raven, Tamri, Thekla Lark, Yellow Scorpion

On the Monday (9th March), we took our first trip out in the minibus, with several stops along the Atlantic coast, to the north of Agadir. The first stop was at Cap Rhir, mainly to look at vegetation, though we saw fauna of interest too…

Yellow Scorpion. It’s only 2 inches, excluding tail, but it has a nasty venom.

Two Moorish Geckos taking advantage of the pipe’s warmth

Margarita’s Fringe-toed lizard, about six inches long, including tail

I got the giggles at this. Philip, Don and Alison take photos of the lizard, a young shepherd boy on his donkey looks on in puzzlement, and his sheep follow.

And the ovines catch us up.

Believe it or not, these two plants are both from the euphorbia family. The cactusy-looking one is not a cactus!

This is a Moroccan Lizard-toed Gecko, or three-quarters of one. Philip had picked it up, but it escaped, leaving its tail behind to wriggle and distract the predator.

Philip was mortified, saying that this had never happened to him before.

We moved further north to Oued (River) Tamri, in search of the endangered Northern Bald Ibis. The total world population (in the wild) is only about 800, and near here was a known breeding site. When we stopped in the car park, alongside the vehicles of some surfers, we knew we would see some of the birds, as one of our number had spotted some high on a cliff to our right.

They flew around a bit.

A Marsh Harrier came to join the party. Well, not really, but it was good to see it.

After eating a very copious packed lunch provided by the lodge, we walked further along the dunes to the mouth of the oued.

Very far away, a raven and – not one of those beehives.

Even further away, a Grey Heron and a Little Egret, plus one of the seven feral dogs who had tried to share our lunches with us

Excellent surfing waves, Audouins’ Gulls, and picture irretrievably distorted by me – it wasn’t that dark!

We enjoyed walking along the sand, with its fresh breeze and wonderful surfing waves, and were reluctant to leave, but our next stop was explicitly for us to enjoy even more some sea action.

Someone took a photo of me in rapt contemplation

Our route back to the hotel took us into Agadir, and we climbed and climbed, to our puzzlement. It turned out we were being taken to the Kasbah (fort), which was very severely damaged in the 1960 earthquake, especially inside.

The camels and ponies were for tourist rides

The views explained the setting.

Before our evening meal, we were invited into the salon of the Atlas Kasbah, which in a Moroccan home is a room near the entrance used only for entertaining guests. According to Moroccan tradition these can (and do) turn up completely unannounced, have the right to stay for up to three days, and it would be the height of bad manners to ask how long they were intending to stay. They sleep in the salon.

We stayed for about an hour, to be introduced by Hassan to the very elaborate traditional tea making ceremony. Ibrahim – or Hussein, I never did manage to tell them apart, as both were so charmingly smiley – assisted.

Hassan dressed up for us. Normally he was in western dress.

Namibia/Botswana/Zambia 7

27 Wednesday Mar 2019

Posted by Musiewild in Countryside views, Photography, Travel, Wildlife

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

African white-backed vulture, blacksmith lapwing, Burchell's sandgrouse, Double-banded courser, elephant, giraffe, grey heron, grey-headed gull, Impala, kudu, marabou stork, marsh terrapin, Mokuti lodge, northern black korhaan, Pale chanting goshawk, pied avocet, Tawny eagle, termite mound

As I walked back to my room at Mokuti Lodge for a rest after lunch, I felt uncomfortable, not for the last time, to see lawn-watering going on for the pleasure of tourists, in a country so afflicted by drought.

In due course, we went out for our late afternoon drive.

Blacksmith lapwings, impala, and the only elephant who visited this watering hole while we were there.

… Though more elephants were hanging around at a distance when we arrived, facing in both directions, and took some time to move off. It was as if they couldn’t decide whether to come closer. (I refrain from making current political analogies.)

The vulture (which is tagged) does not seem bothered by the giraffe passing behind it.

A grey heron lords it over the blacksmith lapwings

I don’t think you can have too much of giraffes.

Pied avocets. (It’s not for nothing that in French the avocet is ‘Avocette élégante.)

We moved on – as I recollect to a sewage works.

The Marsh terrapin hangs his legs out to air the rest of his body, as I see it.

As we drove back to the lodge, I tried to capture some of the termite mounds which were to be seen almost everywhere.

These korhaans started a lekking display but moved off into the privacy (?) of the bushes so we were unable to observe it. Pity!

But still kept threatening. Pale chanting goshawk.

We spent our second night at Mokuti Lodge, to move on the next day.

Namibia/Botswana/Zambia 5

22 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by Musiewild in Cats, Photography, Travel, Wildlife

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

black-backed jackal, Cattle egret, elephant, Etosha National Park, European bee-eater, flamingo, gemsbok, giraffe, greater flamingo, grey heron, honey badger, Impala, Kori bustard, leopard tortoise, lilac-breasted roller, Lion, Mokuti lodge, Namibia, Namutoni camp, northern black korhaan, oryx, Ostrich, Pale chanting goshawk, red-billed hornbill, red-necked falcon, Safariwise, Spotted hyena, Striped mongoose, swallow-tailed bee-eater, warthog, white rhino, Wildebeest, zebra

Tuesday 26th February. Today we were leaving Halali Camp and moving on to Mokuti Lodge at the eastern end of Etosha National Park in time for lunch, and to stay two nights. While we were waiting for our vehicles to collect us, some of us were amused to see a honey badger arrive at the row of bins opposite us, (all closed at that stage), sniff at each, and, clearly much practised, neatly flip open the lid of the end one – holding it open with its back leg to prevent it falling shut – go inside and take out this packet of meat, then calmly tear it open and eat the contents, slice by slice. It then proceeded to do exactly the same with a packet of cheese slices. Not the way you really want to observe wildlife, but a clear illustration of adaptation to human presence. They were there first!

We set off through the national park, taking our time, stopping at the roadside and waterholes, making for our new lodge.

I was in Jakes’s vehicle this day, and he was particularly excited to see this rhino. It is a White rhino, quite rare (and, as I discovered later, a reintroduction). ‘White’ is a corruption of, I believe, Dutch ‘wijd’, referring to its wide mouth. The White rhino also has a prominent neck hump. It is noticeably larger than the Black rhino. The Black rhino is also called the Browse rhino.

It’s not only giraffes who have to splay their legs to drink. So do impala

When we saw elephant approaching from our right, we not only stopped, we backed up a little. We were clearly in the path they were going to take.

This is how near they were, even as they were going away.

When we were only a few miles from or next lodge, we stopped at Namutoni Camp, a former German colonial fort, now another government-run lodge.

There was a small museum there, and a family of striped mongooses.

But our next lodge was privately run, and a distinct notch or four up on those we had already stayed at. After a leisurely lunch, and a siesta, we were due to go out, though this was put slightly in doubt by rain, the first of only two occasions when we wondered whether our plans might be affected in this way. But the storm was brief, nothing like enough to help do anything about the drought, and we went out at the planned time.

Signs of the recent rain soon disappeared

Our first ostriches. We were to get better views in later days

Northern black korhaan (aka White-quilled bustard)

But it was nowhere near these three little hoglets we saw later, running out of a culvert, no parent in sight

All of life is here! Impala (as far as I can tell), zebra, giraffe, grey heron, and just two Greater flamingos. But for the drought, there would have been huge flocks of flamingo we were told. As it was, we were very lucky to see any.

Although it was very warm, we had little sun all afternoon, and rain threatened much of the time, though never fulfilling its threats. Such rain as there was anywhere was very localised. This part rainbow accompanied us for a good while as we made our way back to the lodge in the late afternoon. I wondered whether its curious shape was because the sun was so high, but this theory was well disproved nine days later.

Andalucia 10

09 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by Musiewild in Photography, Travel, Wildlife

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

Acebuche, Andalucia, Andalusia, azure-winged magpie, black-winged stilt, Blue rock thrush, Cattle egret, cinereous vulture, cormorant, Donana National Park, Eagle owl, Egyptian vulture, El Rocio, Eurasian black vulture, grey heron, greylag goose, griffon vulture, Iberian great grey shrike, Iberian magpie, Imperial eagle, Jandula, lapwing, littel egret, Naturetrek, Red-legged partridge, rock pipit, Sardinian warbler, Sierra Morena, spoonbill, starling, stonechat, White stork

Birds in Andalucia. Look, I’m not very good with bird identification, but I do know that eagles tend to soar. So when Simon said, incredibly excitedly, ‘There’s an imperial eagle on that post’, I quickly zoomed in on it and took this. I was not alone. And not alone to realise, on examining the photo enlarged on the camera screen, that ‘that’ post’ was not that post! What Simon meant was this – perhaps half a mile away. When you go on a Naturetrek trip, they provide you in advance with a checklist of all the creatures you may see, with a column for each day. There are always hundreds of species of birds on this list, and when we’re out I am in such awe as I hear naturalists/guides (and others) crying’, ‘That was the call of an X’, ‘There’s a Y.’ ‘Where, where?’ we all say, and they all do their darndest to help you see the creature. I’m probably about average in being able to pick something out visually, no better, and am certainly poor on birdsong. At the end of each day we gather together – nothing compulsory about it – and go through the list. Of those seen or heard by someone, I will have seen perhaps a third to a half, the bigger the bird the more likely I am to have seen it. I will have managed to take a photo of very few indeed. Here’s what I did get, with their identifications to the best of my recollection, (totally subject to correction, please). Firstly in the Coto Doñana.

Original identification corrected to female or first-year male stonechat (Ack. BL)

Iberian great grey shrike

Stonechat

???

Cattle egrets living up to their name

And why not take a bunch of starlings? Especially when they are beautiful Spotless starlings, with wonderful glossy coats (though ordinary ones are pretty wonderful too!)

Griffon vultures

Griffon vultures

Best I could do to get a griffin vulture in flight

Easier to take this

We had driven a great loop and were now nearer to (but not very near) the Imperial eagle. Only about 4500 left in the world

And then Simon spotted another, incredibly far away, and I’ve magnified this many times, but the nest can be seen in silhouette, and the eagle in a direct line with it, on the right. Two Imperial eagles in view at the same time!

Almost as exciting to the leaders were a total of 6 Egyptian vultures coming in to two trees.

White storks and a heat haze

More cattle egrets doing their thing. To quote Wikipedia, ” It was originally native to parts of Southern Spain and Portugal, tropical and subtropical Africa and humid tropical and subtropical Asia. In the end of the 19th century it began expanding its range into southern Africa, first breeding in the Cape Province in 1908. Cattle egrets were first sighted in the Americas on the boundary of Guiana and Suriname in 1877, having apparently flown across the Atlantic Ocean. It was not until the 1930s that the species is thought to have become established in that area.”

We were taken to a tiny patch of the wetlands that was still wet. I would have expected that there would have been vast concentrations of waders there. There were not. In addition to these Little egrets (I think) and lapwing/black-winged stilts (which, or something else?) we saw spoonbill and other species further away.

Greylag geese, on the ‘lagoon’ at El Rocío

Then at our picnic spot at El Acebuche, I managed at last to see an Iberian (or azure-winged) magpie. I had heard them mentioned a few times, but this was the first time I had properly seen the beautiful creature, rather smaller than the common ones (and there were plenty of those around). A few new birds (in terms of photographic opportunities) in the Sierra Morena. We saw a fairly rare Cinereous (a.k.a. Eurasian black) vulture over our picnic stop by the Jandula dam, but sadly this is not one, but a griffon vulture. (Identification BL)

Rock pipits at the dam

There is a Blue rock thrush in this picture, also at the dam. Half way up the slope there is a bit sticking out. The bird is not that bit. The bird is the bit sitting on that bit!

Two red-legged partridges. Some colleagues went out for a short early evening birdwatching trip on the second evening in the mountains, and came back saying they had seen an Eagle owl. We all went to the spot the next day, and this is where we were searching. (Well, the rock face was much bigger than this actually.) A third of the way down, and a quarter of the way in from the left there is this. And within that there is this. The Eagle owl is in one of these holes. See it? No I don’t either. Yeah, right, we’ll believe you Simon!

Several birds joined us at our last picnic spot, including this grey heron, which flew gracefully towards us after a while. And then a troop (is that the word?) of Iberian magpies arrived at the same spot, and gradually made their way towards us, taking over the picnic tables as we left them. (Actually, the collective word for magpies is a murder, or a charm, or a congregation or a gulp. Take your pick.)

If it’s one for sorrow and two for joy, what do 14 magpies signify? (BL suggests for two secrets never to be told!)

At the spot where we had seen the big fish, a kingfisher swooped along the river and under the bridge – no photo sadly – and these cormorants stood for a while and then took off. Next (and last) post: felines!