Cormorant

The Cormorant or Black Shag photograghed in Ounavarragh River by Mick O Callaghan

I was walking home along the Burrow Road in Courtown when all at once I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of a Broigheall or cormorant, neck held high and with wings fully stretched. It was such a striking posture

 I come from a seaside village and spent a lot of my youth in Blennerville, Derrymore and Fenit pier and island. We did a lot of fishing and watching the comings and goings of birds.  The cormorant frequented the beach and river mouths, and I was fascinated by their elegance.  They were always active as they hunted fish underwater.

My burrow road encounter was my first sighting of a cormorant this year and I was glad to see a sign of the emerging spring season when the mating season for the cormorants begins. It was always a sure sign that better weather lay ahead. The sight of this elegant bird standing on a rock in the middle of the Ounavarra River was a sight to behold. My camera went into overdrive to capture the moment.

Three ladies were walking a short distance behind me and one of them got excited when she saw the cormorant in the river. She had recently written a poem about a cormorant and wanted a photo or piece of artwork of one. She took out her iPhone out of her handbag and snapped away, getting some delightful images of her lovely bird. She was fascinated by the bird she had written about in her poem. She wrote about this black bird with the glossy feathers and a long, elegant neck. She told me how happy she was when she observed them diving in relatively clear water. She described them as snake like when they travel at speed under water while fishing. They can dive in one spot and emerge 50 metres away devouring whole a small fish they caught during their dive. We spoke about birds and fish and our mental pictures of them. I had an image of them myself as gliding through waters slithering on like an eel.

When I think of eels I am cast back in time to my early days in London in the mid-sixties when we went to Billericay working men’s club on Saturday night drinking pints of light and bitter and eating jellied eels.

We spoke about the cormorants mating season, and I am convinced that the same birds return to the same spot here in the Ounavarra River every year to mate.

It is fascinating to watch their mating performance with necks fully stretched while they perform some elaborate wing movements.

Personally, I love it when I am walking back along the beach and see a cormorant swimming close by the shore, one moment you see the long neck bobbing along and then they are gone, disappeared while they pop up several metres away after their fishing experience.

After fishing it is an absolute delight to watch them perch on a rock or other suitable branch or high patch of ground above seawater as they spread their wings to dry.

Cormorants have fewer waterproof feathers than other seabirds. This dry wing gives them greater buoyancy enabling them to go down fishing to greater depths.

Sea folk at home loved to see the cormorants around the river mouths and shores as they were supposed to bring good luck while others see them as ill omens. I don’t think they brought too much luck to Courtown Beach this year which took its worst battering in years

The cormorant is referred to in early books of the bible. John Milton in his Paradise Lost also refers to the cormorant. After jumping over the boundary wall of Eden, Satan sits on the Tree of Life to survey the garden and plan the destruction of Adam and Eve. “Thence up he flew, and on the Tree of Life, the middle tree and highest tree that grew, sat like a Cormorant.I have also read about the Norwegian tradition that said people who are lost at sea come back to visit relatives as cormorants.

Mick O Callaghan   March 2026.  www.aramblersblog.com contact caldun09@gmail.com

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