The old man and the cormorant

I was taking photographs of ducks on Austin's Town Lake today, and intruded with my whirring and clicking on a bearded man about 70 years old sitting contemplatively on a bench by the water. He said, pointing, "there's a cormorant over there," and a double crested cormorant came swimming out from behind some bushes. The cormorant was busy fishing, and was maybe 30 feet from us. I took a bunch of pictures. The light was bad. The guy said, "I'll get him to come closer." Silence. The cormorant stopped fishing, swam closer to us, eyeing us warily, and passed us at a distance of ten feet as he went downstream. I thanked the man, and left.








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