Mine! Mine! Mine!

If you have had young ones in your life a decade ago, the title above will be recognized from a familiar animated movie. I saw outside my window above the dining room table a dozen or so white flags swooping and diving and gliding. They were our local seagulls.

It is not unusual to see two or three flying about 20 feet or more over the river looking for food, but these numbers were noticeable, and the activity was aggressive.

I picked up the binoculars that we left nearby and realized that along with more than a dozen gulls in the gray sky above, there were just a few fewer cormorants floating just below the surface of the water with their long necks and deep blue eyes.  One or two would dive below the surface and one or two would emerge wet and wiggly.

The cormorants were stirring up the fish to the surface as they went after those that dove below.  The gulls then had a nice feast from those that cormorants missed in eating.  Our river is more shallow than the main part and the little fish can easily be pinned against the bottom.

Two days later after our "big" snowfall of one inch about 100(!) cormorants flew into our part of the river, stayed less than an hour and were followed by gulls.  Alas, I did not get that photo!