Is she a spirit bird, I wonder? I see no evidence of her colony, but then I’m not walking by the shore and looking out over the river to see if and where others may be nesting. In my car, flashing past, I see only black feathers. I think she is quite elegant in her classic basic black. A little research suggests she is a Double-crested Cormorant, but I cannot get close enough to see her feathers and markings from the road.
I pass her by on nearly every trip to and from Wakefield. When I do not see her, I miss her and wonder where she might be – out fishing, exploring the length of the river, dodging the eagles that live further upstream in Farrelton?
She sits perched atop a branch of a dead tree, which provides a panoramic view beyond the asphalt of the highway, looking to the hills and homes on the one side, and the river, fields and hills on the other. I am curious as to why she picked that spot, but very glad she did.
She first caught my attention last spring. I am assuming she wintered in Florida, a true snowbird. I affectionately named her Cora, Latin for Heart. It seemed fitting as I love seeing her perched above the river, and like the river, she connects me to the natural world in a profound way.
Wanting to get to know Cora better, I read that cormorants seek perching areas for the considerable amount of time they spend resting each day. Their two main activities are fishing and resting, with more than half their day spent resting! After fishing, they retire to high, airy perches to dry off and digest their meals. Dead trees are a favourite spot.
Like Cora, I have a love of swimming and the river’s fresh water recharges me and brings me joy. Like me, Cora can deep dive and move about easily under water.
As with Indigenous peoples, Cora is a survivor of settler colonialism. The first European settlers in North America considered the Double-crested cormorant a competitor for fishing stock and undertook a relentless drive to destroy the birds.
In the 1800s and early 1900s, cormorants were frequently shot, and their numbers declined. In the mid-twentieth century, they also suffered greatly from the harmful effects of ingesting pesticides from contaminated fish.
These days, it is the various provincial ministries of natural resources who are responsible for the “management” of wildlife. Conservation biologist Linda Wires explores the cormorant’s story in her book, The Double-Crested Cormorant: Flight of a Feathered Pariah. In a critique of the science, management, and ethics underlying the Double-crested Cormorant’s treatment, Wires exposes “management” as a euphemism for persecution (seen with so many species) and shows that the current strategies of aggressive predator control are outdated and unsupported by science.
I learned that in 2018, cormorants were subject to a nearly year-round open hunt, which included their breeding season, because the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources cowed to hunting and angling groups. However, in 2020, 51 scientific experts signed an open letter to the ministry, arguing that the cormorant hunt has no basis in science, and further pushback from the public and its own scientists, led the ministry to confine the hunt to the fall. Nonetheless, even today in Ontario and Quebec it is legal to hunt cormorants from September 15 to December 31 and kill as many as 15 birds a day.
In a recent article in Cottage Life magazine, Andrea Curtis writes, “ It’s like getting to know a person you disagree with. The more you know about them, their motivations and interests, their history and experiences, the harder it is to see them as one-dimensional caricatures. Maybe it’s not cormorants that need to change, but humans who must reimagine what it is to coexist.”
Cora coexists between modern “civilization” – the human construction of a road and the noise of endless cars – and the wild – the river as old as time and the sounds of water, wind and birdsong. Like the river, she provides a link to the natural world and the precious connection to be found with nonhuman beings.
This summer, as if on cue, a friend lent me the book, Is the River Alive?, by Robert Macfarlane. I was instantly swept up in the profoundly descriptive, poetic and inspiring stories. Not only is the book beautifully written by a master storyteller, but it is inspirational in providing examples of wonderful human beings who are working to preserve, protect and champion the rights of nature.
Macfarlane is part of an interdisciplinary collective More-Than-Human-Life, (MOTH) dedicated to the advancement of rights and well-being for humans, nonhumans and the web of life that sustains us all. In his book, he provides three inspiring case studies which not only answer the question of the life of a river, but respond to Andrea Curtis’ question on reimagining what it is to coexist.
With Macfarlane I journeyed (in my mind) down the Muteshekau Shipu (Magpie River) a wild river in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, who obtained the legal status of personhood in 2021, thus ensuring the river’s protection from human exploitation. Closer to home, here in the Gatineau Hills, efforts to grant Cora’s river, the Tenàgàdino Zibi (Gatineau River) the same legal rights are underway. The Tenàgàdino alliance recognizes the rights of the river and its spiritual significance.
Driving home one evening in July, following a transcendent yoga class on the covered bridge, where the water almost lulled me to sleep in final Shavasana, I came to the bend and the tree where Cora sat perched. To my surprise and delight, she was not alone. There were two cormorants.
I have since seen the two of them regularly, sometimes together, sometimes on separate trees. Recently, one very early morning, with the mist rising off the river, I saw the cormorants Cora and Cormac (sea raven), resting together. Shrouded in mist and mystery. they are indeed spirit birds. In them, I find connection – to the river and the sea, to the wild and wonderous. Like the river, they provide a reassuring, calming presence in a troubled world. They bring me peace and delight.
Whether a vantage point for fishing or a resting spot, or both, perched as river sentinels, the cormorants are perhaps reminding all who drive by of the splendid connections to be made with the natural world, their rights, the river’s rights and how wonderfully alive are the waters sustaining all life. Robert Macfarlane said “our fate flows with that of water & always has,” and that “hope is the thing with rivers.”
I would add, that hope also sits atop a tree and rests with you and me.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all-
Emily Dickinson
Nature – An anthem of possibility and hope –
Wandering Wakefield 