Cormorants on the breakwall at Dawlish Devon

I love to see the cormorants drying their wings like this - I took 10 or so shots and this was the best - but still lacks much of the reality of the happening. The reason I like them is because they are like so many birds who live from food beneath the surface founced to stop what they are doing occasionally to let their feathers dry. They are also by coincidence one of the animals that can live in all three forms of space - they fly, swim and walk on land. As a child I learned to draw great crested grebes another fish catching bird usually found in freshwater. Cormorants are loathed by freshwater fisherpersons because they are seen as the reason why there are less fish and I guess that this is valid but birds got to eat and with the invasion of the natural fishing grounds of the cormorant, plus the over fishing of inshore areas then the birds just move to places where there are fish. Nice stocked club water is like a banquet. The trouble is they can damage larger fish but not eat them, and scoop up all the fry so there is no progression of generation.
I also think of them when I am fly fishing, and its something to do with the resting thing. If you fly fish yo have time when your fly (particularly a dry fly) will become waterlogged. By "false casting basically wiping the line back and forth though the air with out landing the fly on the water) you can dry it. Doing this over the water you are about to cast onto though will probably alert all the fish in the vacinity and result in no fishing. You press it with a peice od shammy leather but probably flatten it. The best thing in the long run though is to let it dry out, possibly on a piece of lambs wool or on your hat. That was the natural oil will return to the surface and a quick dab of flotant and away you go again. I was very much a proponent of the first and second because I never appreciated the nuance of the last. Wanting to "get back on the water" as fast as possible was the goal afterall you would catch no fish with your line out of the water. Now though I try (and I emphasise try) to stick a bit more to the latter and take a pause. I do after all fish in some of the most beautiful parts of the upper teign valley and Dartmoor national park.
When we stop, slow down and sure practice a more natural way of living then there seems to be something that recognises this way back, to how it was, in our bodies.
It is something that is being sold as a virtue in the cooking game - slow food - good food takes time to prepare often starting days in advance. I make kimchi from scratch and the fierce chilly, ginger and garlic paste is too hot for the first 6 months, so is better left for twice or three times that. This gives the ingredients time to slowly change, cure, cook. Heating food is a chemical way to accelerate change in food, it adds flavour, aids the breaking down of matter, the curing process is the same it just takes longer.
In my reading of a more Buddhist/Taoist style of living I am finding something of this in the whole of life. I wonder if I am myself being slowly transformed into something, perhaps more attuned to the whole of creation.
Chris Rowberry
Dec 23