140+ cormorant invasion and license plate watching

[M.Bernat]

It was a steady, Hitchcockian stream of dc cormorants that flew low over a residential neighborhood going northwest from the Little Calumet R. area towards who knows where this a.m. First time seeing this behavior.  They mean us no harm. . . . Or do they?  

Would love to hear your cormorant knowledge about what that gaggle, group, okay gang was up to. 

Meanwhile, Al’s license plate posts have inspired me to heed plates, as in the days of yore when my sibs and I spotted them from the back of the station wagon on family vacations. Yikes, the subspecies of plates these days are a challenge! Especially those of the Land of Lincoln’s! One plate looks familiar now that Michigan has revived its vintage yellow on dark blue plate. 

The license plate of the day is the one that got away. Just like my birding. 

Mary Bernat

South Cook County

[Chuck Berman]

I have no cormorant expertise, just observational. I looked up what a flock of double-crested cormorants are called. Strangely, it is called a “gulp,” after the manner of eating a fish whole.

Last year, I was on a morning shift of piping plover monitoring at Montrose Beach in Chicago. It was cold, overcast and windy. It was in April. There was only a small gulp of humans. For about an hour, we saw thousands and  thousands of cormorants flying north over Lake Michigan and directly above us one the beach.  Many were flying just over the water in long ribbons. It reminded to me of squadrons of WW2 fighters. 

They just kept coming. And coming. They can get up to breeding grounds in Canada. 

Cormorants are far from my favorite bird, but they were that morning. Nature at its best.

Chuck Berman

Oak Park

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