Cormorants stand on the rocks of the Portwilliam shore of Luce Bay. Long-necked, ungainly birds, they stand there while the incoming tide creeps up the shore and mists drift across the bay and up the glen to the Alticry lodge. When the rocks are awash, the birds rise and fly slowly, less than three feet from the surface, out across the water, where they vanish into the mist. The gulls remain afloat on the swell and great waves crash with thunder on the shore. The crash echoes up the cliffs and fades into a soft sigh.
Wigtown Ploughman
John McNeillie
1939
Wigtown Ploughman
John McNeillie
1939
2 comments:
Nice extract, takes me back. I have been anchored off a coast like that waiting for the mist to lift so that we could continue to our next port of call and cormorants not only dissapear into the mist but dive into the sea and never seem to surface. I can only assume they surface a long way away from us. Also seals pop up, give you the once over and then dive again. Watching them was worth the wait for the weather to change.
I bought the book because we went to Wigtownshire on our holidays. We were staying about four miles from Port William and visited the village a few times during the week. (Excellent sandwich shop on the Square called something like Tasty Bites.)
Cormorants were doing exactly what's described here. And the book was published in 1939!
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