bird catching

Saw this recipe today - How to cook a cormorant in The Times and was sold by the opening line: " Once you've shot your Cormorant... ". This is no ready meal. You need to keep it at arms length cos they're famed for being covered in 'verminous lice', tie it up, set light to it with petrol and bury it for two weeks before you even go near a kitchen.

I have some small experience in dealing with cormorants. While fishing in sydney harbour last year - sat in a little tinny getting bashed around at the sow and pigs reef - I was fishing with some small live bait trying to catch some bigger fish ( it wasnt much more technical than that). basically u catch some small yellow tails about the length of your hand on hand lines with prawn, then gang hook them. This is pretty brutal and means a big hopok through the tail and one through the chops. pel's a natural at catching them but hates it when i do this bit. We'd often get seagulls, even Pelicans take a swoop and a look at your bait fish as it gets cast out and slaps onto the water but they amostly always seem to tell its no good.

But this time, a huge brown and white cormorant swooped down - its wings were pretty big and it landed, picked it up in its mouth - had a wiggle getting it sorted, liifted its head up and swallowed the whole thing, gang hooks and all. We were desperatelytrying to shoo it and pull it away but next thing it tried totake off and ended up turning our boat around on the anchor and draggng out line. I ended up reeling it in a bit and we were desperately trying to hide th fact from the surrounding boats that we'd caught this big bird. I think they may even be protected species there. In the end we chopped the line and fcked off sharp feeling really bad.

p.s even worse the same thing happened with a seagll in new zealand once - but for some reason it felt much worse and sadder with the cormorant - birdist that I am.