... and the things you see

So when Fury and I take a walk, we see some interesting things. She has not forgotten Rodney the Musk Rat (I think she'll be looking for him every time we go past the house). She hasn't forgotten the deer (she sniffs after them at every spot we encountered them). And tonight, she saw something else, and--happily for all concerned--completely missed the other sight.

We went to the little beach near the house, walked past Rodney's home (tug of war, I won), walked past the house with the deer alley (roadside was more interesting to sniff, the deer had been there), and then onto the little beach. The wind has been blowing all day, and from the west, so it was coming towards us from the official town beach. The tide was half-in-half-out, so there was enough sand to walk on, so we headed along from the wetlands beach towards the marked-off-for-swimming beachlet. The wind was rustling the reeds and Fury had already been watching for ghosts.

Rounding the first corner, Fury saw something in the undergrowth before I did. He had his back to us and was huddled in his black/green feathers. It was a cormorant, just sitting in the mini-sand-dune among the reeds and undergrowth. He turned orange-beaked to look at us and extended his left wing. I wondered if he was hurt--surely it wasn't his usual resting place? Fury wanted to play but was persuaded to sit down. Then the bird stretched his right wing, refolded them both, and hustled, ungracefully, off to the water, half flying half running. And sat and bobbed with the wavelets and the wind.

Fury was so intent on dragging me backwards to the cormorant and into the water, that she wasn't looking ahead.

We rounded the next bend and I did a quick about-turn. There was Sex on the Beach, and it wasn't cocktail hour. A quick glimpse of bare knees and a blue-jean'd behind.

I'm glad Fury didn't see or hear them, because she would have kicked up a fuss and I wouldn't have been able to race-walk away without seeing people's faces. I don't think they heard me approach, because the wind and the reeds were louder than footsteps on wet sand. But it would have been hilarious had Fury gone to investigate... imagine being in the passion of love/lust when a big white panting dog gets in the way...

No wonder the cormorant had turned his back.