All winter long, a gang of Double-Crested Cormorants roosts high in a
tall Western Red Cedar along the shore of Fawn Lake, on Washington's
Olympic Peninsula. These fish-eaters are numerous, and apparently
find enough stocked trout in the lake to satisfy their prodigious
appetites during the non-breeding season. They are noisy birds, and
for years we have nicknamed them "pig birds" for the grunting noises
they make when there is activity around the roost tree.

About a week ago, a Double-Crested Cormorant began roosting on our
scraggly waterfront Bigleaf Maple, about 60' away from the main group
of cormorants. This is a 1st year juvenile bird, and I wonder if
there simply wasn't room for it on the main roost tree, or if it
lacked the seniority to claim a good perch.

I have seen cormorants fishing on Fawn Lake for years, but with the
arrival of "our" juvenile bird, it has been interesting to see what a
creature of habit this bird is. From the first moment I saw it, the
bird has perched on precisely the same small real estate of the same
stout branch, perhaps 40' above the water. Oh, it comes and goes, but
always returns to that very precise spot, and there it spends the
night, as well as its grooming and digesting time. In fact, I've been
surprised at how much time the cormorant is able to spend resting?as
opposed to actively fishing. I should probably time it, but my guess
is that the cormorant spends about 85% of its hours perching. Ducks
and geese can spend virtually their entire lives in water, except for
nesting, but cormorants don't have the advantage of those wonderful
waterproof feathers, so they need to spend a great deal of time
simply drying out.

Today, in late afternoon, a Great Blue Heron flew in while the
cormorant was away, landing on precisely the same point on the same
branch. The heron looked as if it might settle in for the night, and
it retracted one leg up under its feathers, doing its special avian
circus act of sleeping while balancing on one leg high atop a tree.
But then the cormorant flew in and landed on a branch about four feet
away from its favored perch. It was outraged! Or at least that was
the impression we got. The heron awoke and crouched into a defensive
position, and then the cormorant and heron began trading open-bill
jabs at each other, though they were just a bit too fair apart to
actually stab their opponent. We're sure there was the bird
equivalent of hissing from both parties, but we were too far away to
hear it. The heron's plumes were flying and its hackles were raised
in fight mode. After half-a-dozen jabs from each side, the heron had
had enough; it turned around and edged out toward the end of the
branch. The aggressive young cormorant saw the opening, then wing-
hopped over to its favorite perch, at which point the heron retreated
to the safety of air. The cormorant quickly settled in for the night
and probably had some adrenaline-fueled dreams.

Nature is, of course, filled with minor skirmishes everywhere and
every day that don't rise to the interest level of a Timber Wolf pack
hunting down a Moose. It is worthwhile noting these minor sightings
in our lives, if only because careful observation helps us live
richer lives.

I have a blog entry telling more stories about the Bigleaf Maple
where this little drama took place. Go to http://leerentz.wordpress.com

Lee Rentz
Shelton, WA
lee at leerentz.com
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