5 Cormorants

These birds are pretty wary, so I was surprised and pleased that when I stopped my car along the slough, they stayed put long enough to catch this shot and were all airborne a moment later. They've increasingly become considered a nuisance on the Columbia because they're charged with eating large numbers of salmon and steelhead and have, consequently, been "controlled" by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a measure which has been sanctioned by the courts but, nevertheless, has been and continues to be very controversial. Opponents of the move cite dams on the river as a more formidable obstacle to fish. Still, I occasionally see them flying above the river in flocks of hundreds, sometimes accompanied by much rarer white pelicans...a nice study in black and white!
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