GOOD SPIT-GLUE

Let's all try thinking about life as a Cormorant for just a minute. The electrical towers built in the tide flats of Coos Bay are constructed of metal girders. They tower hundreds of feet in the air above the tide lands. Wind buffets them hard enough to suck a good idea right out of your head and blow your feathers off if you are a bird. Yet these hardy birds build their nests on those thin metal girders during the rainy spring days with the wind tearing at the twigs like a hungry monster. This is where they lay their eggs. This is the first life these little fuzz balls know. In the pix below, the daddy perches next to Mom, reaches behind her and feeds the two hungry beaks reaching up. Mom perches there on the thin ledge ready to assume her position as "blanket" for the babies as soon as he has filled their crops with regurgitated fish. 

All that is going on while the wind whistles through the metal girders. Consider this: What kind of "glue" do they use to hold that nest onto the metal?  Consider the determination these critters have to propagate life and carry on. While they are considered "evil fish eaters" by local fishermen since they do consume "our fish" I suggest we have a lot to learn from them. If we lament our poor showing on a fishing expedition, let's hone our fishing skills. Knocking the wondrous attributes of nature is not going to cure anything or put fish in our nets.

The Cormorant numbers have exploded in certain areas where they have no natural predators. I do understand the implications of that. But, when human beings intervene we generally make matters worse. Maybe, just maybe, they have a good lesson we need to learn. And it's not about using good spit glue to hold a nest on a metal girder.