Fish Guzzling

We are winding down here at Intrigued as the last of the 2025 events are slowly coming to a close. Yesterday I finished up the last of the crown work which ended up being far more painful than expected thanks to the temporary cap somehow welding to my tooth – have I mentioned before how much I absolutely abhor dental work – just point to a dental drill bit and I’ll give up my mother in an interrogation. Fingers crossed later today I get released by the ankle surgeon, so I can fully enjoy tonight’s Intrigued staff gathering – trust me, you want to be fully healthy before attending one of those parties – the weak are culled ha. That just leaves Linda’s family Christmas gathering and then ours before the trek to warmer weather. Hopefully we will be able to make a few more posts before we stop the presses and turn the lights out on this injury riddled year.

Before I get into the real reason you are here, thought I would pat ourselves on the back and note that last post from Brad marked our 1,000th post here on our wildlife sister site (the Intrigued mothership is currently at 1,533 – even a few of those were lost as we transitioned to the WP service from our own servers). A big thanks to all the staff that got us to this point!

Okay, since we are winding “down”, decided it would be appropriate to go with another “down” of sorts…this one being down the hatch.

I think you already know where this is going, but hit the jump to confirm!

If you happen to recall, I was featuring nutritional posts in November (link here and here). I actually had more in the queue, but then “Baby Month” came quicker than expected and I switched over to posts featuring the beginning of life versus, well, the end of life depending on your perspective.

Today, I am picking back up on the life cycle theme. Those last two posts focused on the eating habits of the Great Blue Heron. Switching it up a bit, our featured feathered friend is a Double-Crested Cormorant. Like the GBHs before, the Cormorant’s aqua-green eyes can outsize their throats.

By the way, on my continuing growing list of annoyances with the Cornell birding website, there is not a single reference to the fact these Cormorants have absolutely gorgeous eyes. This is even the case for its sister species the Neotropic Cormorant (link here) which also gets no love from Cornell. Apologies, I digress, but it is rather annoying.

Back to the gorging.

This particular Double-Crested was spotted while we were at Port Aransas back in March of 2024 (before you groan, I am happy to say that work processing the January 2025 spoils in already in progress). Whenever we are in Port A, we spend a good majority of our time at Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center, but we do make stops at Charlie’s Pasture to see the Whooping Cranes, Roberts Point Park to watch the Dolphins racing the tankers as they make their way through Aransas Pass and then on to the South Jetty to look for Sea Turtles while surveying the sand for interesting Terns. On this trip to the Jetty, the DC Cormorant got most of my attention.

If you have not been to the Jetty before, be sure and take the walk out to the end assuming it isn’t raining..or recently rained. A large number of the Jetties in South Texas are formed by huge chunks of pink granite that can become incredibly slick when wet. I went down on the South Padre Island Jetty one wet day (with Ron) and took a full blast to my left knee so I could save The Beast from an untimely death. Hesitantly looked down at the pant leg expecting to see copious amounts of blood spurting out – one of the few times the injury gods were not looking ha.

There is a paved sidewalk down the middle of the Port A Jetty – to a point, where it gives way to jumbled slabs. I recommend continuing to the end to get the full experience and to see the Brown Pelicans and Terns dive-bombing the Gulf waters

At the far end of the Jetty is where I noticed this Cormorant struggling to get down what appears to be some form of Catfish – possibly the Hardheaded or Gafftopsail which are common in the Gulf. Of note is they both possess sharp spines, but the Gafftopsail are also venomous. There you have it, my entire collective knowledge of these two fish summed up in one line. Clearly, fish aren’t my thang hehehe!

This overzealous Cormorant fought with this likely Catfish the entire time I was out on the point. I’ve shortened it for this post, but this series played out time and time again once it got the head pointed in the right direction. Drop bill into the water to get the prey all wet and slippery, struggle to get it back out of the water and tilted up and then try to counter the movement of the fin to maintain some semblance of balance.

…and then somehow start stuffing it down the hatch one small bit at a time. It would just about have it down and then “burp” as it came back up. On each repetition I would think it finally got that fish guzzled when up popped the fin then a little bit more until it was basically back at the starting position.

Here’s an enterprising idea for a creative person out there with a lot of free time and patience…develop some form of Cormorant backpack or vest that fits snugly around a Cormorant’s chest that still allows for it to fly and dive. In that vest, add a small zipper or Velcro pouch that would provide storage of a knife, fork and a small hammer. Once that is properly engineered, devote the next year teaching a few of the more gifted Cormorants out there to catch a fish, fly to the nearest hard pavement where it will take out the hammer and smack the fish over the head. Form there they can use the knife and fork to consume the previously whacked fish with the elegance and grace befitting their beautiful eyes. Wait, wait, that might be asking too much…replace that knife and fork with a spork – that way they don’t have to deal with multiple eating utensils as that might be a bridge to far. Get on that and don’t forget to send me royalties for my idea.

Apologies, but I got distracted by a Sea Turtle and missed the final successful downing. Assuming it was just going to be another failed attempt, I looked back astonished to see it licking its bill and undoing the top button on its pants.

With that, will call it a post and let you get back to your important tasks for the day. Hoping your Christmas holidays are merry and bright. Oh, before I open up my inbox and see all the hate male, I was joking, I would not have given up my own mother for just being shown a dental drill…now if it was on and heading towards my mouth, well hehehe.