It's a lovely place to visit and if you go at the right time of year you may see the peregrines that nest on the cathedral.
You honour me Lunch ☺️
Tldr: Sleepy Eel, very fast and agile bird = dead fish
The big Eels are predators themselves. And if angling is anything to go by then they hunt at night, as that is when they are most often caught. That would suggest that during the day they are probably holed up dozing on or near the bottom of the river in the plants and rocks. Also, at this point of the river, there is a large weir and boat lock, with an eel stair. This allows them to migrate around the man-made obstruction. So they may also be a number of them shoaled up waiting to migrate past the weir. Add this to the fact that cormorants are very fast swimmers, and incredibly agile. That long neck and hooked beak can get in nooks and crannies and latch onto almost anything edible. They are quite capable of catching sea fish in open water. The Eels advantage, if it had one, is they are incredibly slimy and seem to be able to produce additional mucus when threatened. The cormorant lost its grip a few times as it thrashed the eel like a whip trying to subdued it.
They certainly are 😃
This was just one small slice of the scene in front of me, there was 5 or 6 times this number. The first time I saw them many years previously there was 5!
I have definitely seen many species of wading birds asleep on one leg, I think they generally do it to conserve heat.
I like the sound of the word dremples. It is a bit like our word dimples, but that is the physical opposite of bump, rather it means a pit or depression.
Is Achtung Dutch also, I know it from the German, I assume it means the same e.g Attention!
I see you like cycling, it makes sense Attention! (Speed) Bumps! 😁
A German friend actually saved my life with that word. I was about to step out in front of a fast moving car that was going the wrong way down a one way road. He yelled Achtung! I looked around to see why he had suddenly spoken German when we had been speaking English and my foot, that was in mid-step off the pavement, scraped down the side of the car. It didn't stop and I was left a bit stunned to say the least!
Lol yes I can definitely see them getting hot under the frilly collar!
My understanding is that the Chickadees were moved to the genus Poecile (was a sub-genus) which does contain some birds called tit e.g. Willow Tit but is genetically distinct from the other genera that contain the UK birds we call Tits e.g Cyanistes (Blue Tit) or Parus (Great Tit). However, they are in the same Paridae family which are commonly referred to as the Tit family lol I think that's why using common names becomes an issue when you need to be specific. Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_(bird)
I also think the problem is, since the advent of genetic testing, we are finding many species need recategorising. And even though the scientific names change the common names are unlikely to.
Thank you for your kind words. It is one of my favourite pictures and it means a lot that other people enjoy it too.
@EvilTed
@lemmy.world