Cormorant?

[ffutures]

Today I decided I needed to take a longer walk, so briefly visited the Canalway Cavalcade again before pressing on via the canal towards Camden Town. Since part of the route I normally take is generally closed on Bank Holidays I went via Church Street market, which was running relatively normally for a weekday despite the holiday, picked up a nice watermelon, about football sized, then had to lug it around with me all day. When I got back to the canal I found that the direct route was open after all, presumably because of the Canalway thing, and walked from Lisson Grove to Camden Town. VERY busy, because of the festival and the bank holiday. Quite a lot of ducks and geese around, including some mandarins and lots of cute ducklings, but with so many people around they were staying well back and I didn't get any photos.

As I reached the bend in the canal that goes from Regents Park to Camden Lock I looked across to the moorings there (if you know the area, it's behind the red floating Chinese restaurant, which is why the water is reflecting red) and noticed a big black bird there - I'm pretty sure this is the cormorant I saw last year, or another cormorant anyway. I took quite a few pictures but since I couldn't get very close I've made a collage of the best - extreme zoom and the vibration reduction setting was really my friend for most of these.







Went on from there to do a bit of shopping in Camden High Street, nothing very exciting, then got the bus home. Because of various detours this came out as about a 4 mile walk, not wonderful but better than nothing.

Tomorrow I'm headed to Hamstead to pick up a comb binding machine someone's giving away on Freecycle, I'll try to walk some of that too.

In other news Big Red has reached £800 with three days to go (ending Thursday 9 PM). There are 1000+ views and 132 watchers, and two people have asked to see it, Hopefully this means it'll end up at something approaching its true value.

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Yep, Cormorant. Lovely birds. Very nice photos of him, I didn't realise their fathers had that iridescence. I thought they were just matt black all over.

And 132 watchers, that's amazing.

Still, I'm astonished that people will bid £800 on a machine they've not been to see. I'd have wanted to have come to see it, and see you drive it around the block, before I put a bid on.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

The iridescence may be optical fringing from the lens - it's a known problem with these cameras at extreme telephoto settifng - though since nothing else seems to be affected I'm inclined to think it's a genuine sheen on the plumage; it was grooming itself between shots.

The bidding doesn't surprise me too much; Boxers are built like tanks, and the general condition is obvious from the pictures, I hope. I'd imagine whoever gets it will want to see the engine running etc before handing over the money, but there isn't much else that easily goes wrong.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

It looks genuine, most wild fowl are iridescent if they catch the light just right on account of the oils in their plumage aren't they?

I'm surprised it finds enough fish to feed on in the river.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

That's not a river, it's the Regents Canal in Regents Park. My guess, it's eating fish from the park ponds etc., or it may be that someone in the Chinese restaurant is feeding it since I've only ever seen it there.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the Chinese restaurant people are using it to catch fish for them? :)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Doubt it, though there definitely are fish in the canal, they're not very big.