Had enough of ducks and geese?
Eagerly awaiting butterflies?
So am I.
But until they arrive, here is something a little different.
Once upon a time, a double-crested cormorant broke the surface of the river from below holding in its bill a black and silver ovate object glistening in the sunlight. After grappling with it for a few moments, while floating on the water, the cormorant dove, carrying the object with it. Soon the cormorant reemerged grasping the fish, identifiable as a species of flatfish, by its head. The cormorant stretched its neck up, lifting and aligning its head with its neck to create a tube down which to swallow the fish. However, a flatfish is, ah, flat, and a throat is cylindrical, and even a snake with an expandable neck has limits as to what it is able to ingest. Can you image a rattlesnake swallowing a Ping-Pong paddle? So try as it might, the cormorant could not get the fish down. It dove a second time, rearranging the fish, and made another attempt to swallow it, but to no avail.
As the cormorant surfaced from yet another dive and raised the fish into the air once more, a gull, with its eye on said fish, swooped down and narrowly missed seizing it, as the cormorant executed an emergency dive. The gull then landed in the river, where it floated, continually turning its head to scan the surface for the soon to reappear cormorant with its shiny prize. Some yards away, the cormorant and fish arrived at the surface, to be met immediately by the vigilant gull. Another crash dive. Another close call. With two failed tries the gull gave up, flying off to search for an easier meal to steal. The cormorant, retaining its hold on the fish, returned to the surface, made another valiant but futile attempt to swallow its catch, lowered its head to the water, and released the fish. After dipping its face in the river several times, the cormorant turned, swam, …and dove.
The moral of the story:
A roundfish in the belly is worth two in the bill?
You can’t put a flatfish in a round hole?
Your moral here.
Posted at: 08:24 PM | Add Comment
