Is it just me who’s fascinated by collective nouns? Oh, okay, it is. Ah well, I don’t drink, smoke or gamble so things could be a lot worse. Anyway today’s discovery is that a group of cormorants is called a gulp, and when you watch them surface and swallow after a successful hunt you can see why.
There are lots and lots of legends about them. Being a sucker for happy endings, I’m going to focus on a nice one because that’s crying out to be a book title so let’s think about how in Norwegian tradition, the spirits of those who’ve been lost at sea tend to visit their relations described as cormorants. Now that’s a Windy Bay sort of thought, isn’t it?
Cormorants are interesting birds because you have to wonder about how a bird that can dive up to ten metres and needs to dive to catch its food produces so much less oil to waterproof their wings that they have to stand there with their wings stretched out to drip dry. You’ll see in these pictures how careful they are to land with their wings up to keep them dry.
Please, don’t ask me how long I spent happily watching them hunt. I don't care because it was incredible and I’ve got a story idea from it so not a second of it was wasted. Come to that, I’m not convinced that a lot of things we do are wasting time. Reading never is, and we’re coming into the indoor season now in my part of the world, so here are this week’s special offers.
There are 3 from my Eleanor Neville pen name which are a little more violent and with a little more sex than Tia allows. These are from the Shadows series, and about secret agents. They’re Accidental Hero, Strange Harvest and Kisschase and feature intrepid heroes and heroines caught up in strange situations. If you want something gentler then how about three from the Oldcastle Series which I write as Tia Brown and which are old fashioned, gentle romances. These are The Toddler and the Tough Guy, Buried Trouble and Where there’s a Will. The Toddler and the Tough Guy is inspired by a Royal Marine boyfriend of mine who refused to help out at my little brother’s birthday party on what he claimed was the entirely reasonable grounds that he wasn’t allowed to shoot them if they refused to stop when challenged. Thus, I always feel, proving that parents are heroes too!
So see you on Saturday and have a good week.
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