Revenge of the Cormies

Francisco in Minor
Orinoco  Tributary

Francisco was moving the power boat upriver in a leisurely fashion on the widest part of our tributary to the Orinoco, pointing out some incredibly beautiful, orchid like, fire engine red flowers that grew 40 and more feet up at the tops of riverside trees. It was because of our attention to them that Muriel was the first to sight the howler monkeys, for they spend almost their entire time as high up these sky scratching trees as they can get.

Suddenly, Francisco swung the boat around in a tight 90 degree and speeded up. He was sprinting now directly toward a mass of cormorants who were bobbing comfortably on the cream colored river, perhaps 500 of them, maybe more. They gave Francisco no apparent attention until he was within about forty yards and roaring full bore. Then, like a carpet being rippled, undulating from the river to the air, they were a mass of black. Also very noisy.

  

Cormorants cannot lift with any grace, like a heron, or a flamingo. They lunge forward, scampering and beating their wings, and with much complaining. So did these. They created a black sheet, first upstream, then curling toward the far shore.

Francisco slowed the boat to its standard putt-putt pace as we watched the half a hundred creatures, now ten or so feet above the river, veer away from the jungle. Back toward the river center they curved, now some fifteen feet clear of the surface, and finally back over the boat.

DISASTER!!! One cormie, slightly lower than his comrades, gave Francisco what he richly deserved.

After we had spent ourselves in laughter, Muriel pulled the roll of paper towels out of our picnic basket. Francisco, grinning as widely as we, nodded a thank you.

And Francisco, when the cormies had finally settled, proceeded among them at idle speed, so slowly that the birds merely swam out of the way.