Cormorants at Hoover Dam

While looking down the 700 foot face drop of the Hoover dam from the top and squinting at the swirly water coming out of the turbines far below,  just where it continues down stream, I noticed some rather inconspicuous black birds with narrow wings.

They were swirling around In the updrafts and air eddys from the strong wind rushing upstream over the river in the gorge  and lifting up the concrete face of that there dam.

They do not seem to be very good flyers and flapped like crazy but the updraft of air took care of everything and their tatty looking bodies, Feathers all ruffled, were whisked in ever rising circles dramatically ever higher towards me at the top

The movements were too erratic and they were too tiny to Capture on film so I just enjoyed  trying to figure out what they were as the each of about four whirled into view…

About the point where they zoomed over the crest of the dam & over my head, I marveled  to see that they were actually cormorants,

Normally deep diving and fishing skinny black waterbirds, weak flyers not known to make good use of the their air mode of transport, and definitely not soaring birds such as condors gulls And Eagles.

Several of them then shot behind the dam then downward into the calm waters Of Lake Mead below where they continued peacefully fishing and diving there.

Ironically they don’t have oil in their feathers so they don’t even float very well as ducks might

This is what makes them great divers.

I thought “Jonathan Livingston cormorant” for a moment

And then rephrased that in my head :“against all odds “

How these birds learn to do this is anybody’s guess but my feeling is that flying anywhere over that water they inevitably get blown up the dam face by the powerful up currents ..

Yet I saw no other birds doing this.

So they might as well enjoy and the outcome is not bad.

I guess they fly out away from the dam face to get down again, but I didn’t see this.

I doubt theirs is a one-way journey.

The dam itself being artificial is very smooth and there’s very little turbulence, unlike there would be on a rugged natural cliff face where they would be spun to death by the air rotors..

Natural selection at work?

Be interesting to stick around to see!

They have had since the 1930s to Get selected 🙂

[April 2019]