In the boat channel between two shipyards, a cormorant methodically fishes against the tide. The bird dives for thirty to forty seconds, surfaces for about ten, and then dives again. The cormorant does this for a long stretch of water, submerging for over a dozen repetitions for almost exactly the same amount of time. Every few dives the bird is successful in catching a few small silversides, which she swallows while underwater.
Just to the south hunts one of the juveniles from that first clutch by the boulders. Paddling with his feet, he floats on the surface beside the hull of an old steel workboat. He is the same size and looks the same as the adults, except the feathers on his chest and along his throat are pale brown.
He surfaces beside the hull with a fish from the rocky bottom. It is a blackfish the size of a small football, almost twice the length of his head. The fish flaps and whirls until he drops it in the water. The cormorant swims in the channel for a while as if indifferent.
He dives again with the tidal current and comes up downriver holding the same spiky blackfish in his beak.
Three people are having a barbecue on their boat at a mooring. One says, “Look at that. There’s just no way that bird can swallow that thing.”
Another takes out a phone and snaps a photograph.
The cormorant does not seem to hear them. He drops his head in the water to reorient the fish. He still can’t do it.
Once more the young cormorant lowers his entire head into the water. He manages to keep hold of the fish with the sharp tip of his beak. He reemerges, head titled back and stretched upward. He works to bend the fish’s body and swallow it whole and headfirst so as to keep the spines from catching inside his throat. The skin of his neck expands around the shape of the fish as he swallows. After he gets the fish down, the cormorant shakes his head. His whole body trembles.
Then the cormorant looks around and sees the people on the boat. He takes off after several beats on the surface, flying low downriver and toward the island.