... after a day filled with chores, some of which were as boring as they were necessary, i grabbed my camera and headed out for a little evening wanderabout ... across the street from my apartment, i found a rather interesting composition ...
... usually I cross the 2ȼ-bridge first when i'm walking wanderabouting my little town, but i thought i'd live on the edge this time and stroll a counter-clockwise circuit ... i paused in the middle of the memorial bridge and enjoyed the view of an unseasonably high kennebec river cascading over the ticonic dam and falls ...
... from the south side of the span i noticed a huge gather of cormorants ... like the eagles in benton, i'm figuring the tasty alwives are their reason for congregating ...
... i spent almost an hour watching the birds fish ... i'd brought my nikkor 300mm f/4.5 ed lens, so i amused myself snapping pictures ... i knew my images would be nowhere near "audubon quality," for sure, but nevertheless i had great fun ...
... cormorants are rather heavy birds, so once they've adopted the proper posture for gliding they remain quite rigid so as to maximize a rather low glide ratio ...
... they remind me of the a-10 "warthogs" flown by the army national guard ...
... as the sun descended towards the horizon the cormorants formed up and headed back to their homes for the evening ...
... a lone motorcycle rider cruised the pleasant evening, while a single gull soared along the shore beneath the old hathaway mill, perhaps seeking a bit of dessert before he, too, tucked himself in for the night ...
... where hundreds of workers once sewed high-quality dress shirts ...
... now awaiting development, or, perhaps, decay and demolition ...
... they look down to see the kennebec a dark lacing across the fading earth ... probably six miles away, another reason to be impressed with my ancient nikkor telephoto ...
... across the street from my apartment, a young bird sang the evening happy ...
Jonathan Seagull discovered that boredom and fear and anger
are the reasons that a gull's life is so short,
and with those gone from his thought,
he lived a long fine life indeed.
RICHARD BACH