Friday, March the 5th, 2004

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Cormorant Patrol

The four hundred men and women of the Blister Lane Cormorant Patrol brandished their pencil sharpeners, toffee apples, and inaccurate atlases as they reached the peak of the tor after marching all day. Below them, beyond the pig huts, the curiously-stained bridge, and the abandoned swimming baths, they were just able to see, shrouded in mist, the famous (or infamous) Wotan and Tantalum ponds, so dried up after successive droughts that they were now little more than puddles.

“Onwards!” cried Captain Federico ‘Gwyneth’ Paltrow, undisputed leader of the Cormorant Patrol and the man whose stupendous energy had helped it thrive even through such lean times. Seldom has a puny and diminutive physiognomy been so misleading.

And so began their descent. Three quarters of the way down, the newest recruit, fey young Daisy ‘Ricardo’ Montalban, stopped in her tracks, pointed, and yelled out: “Look! Look! Something with a beak and feathers!” And indeed, as they peered through the enshrouding mist, the others saw it too, perched on the branch of a withered pugton tree sprouting hopelessly on the banks of one of the ponds, or puddles. Excitedly, they began running, capering and gambolling down the muddy slope of the tor. But as they closed upon their prey, they realised it was not a cormorant at all. It was a little bittern.

Source : Forty-Six Bird-Related Adventure Stories by Vercingetorix Sepulveda (out of print)