Cormorants

On my art residency on Toronto Island, I was fascinated by the cormorants that have taken over Mugg’s Island and the shipwrecks that have sunk into Lake Ontario over that last two hundred years. I find the behavior of double-crested cormorants endlessly fascinating. Double-crested cormorants have a prehistoric look, with that serpentine neck and piercing turquoise eyes, that’s matched by their extraordinary aquatic prowess. Their feathers have an oily sheen that provide resistance when they deep dive in search of fish. They perch with wings outstretched to dry, like sentinels of some ancient ritual.