There are quite a few cormorants on the reservoir here. Sometimes I see them skimming the surface of the water, soaring up high into the air, sitting on the outlet towers or, at Perry, perched on the breakwater by the boats. This is where I found them this week.
I am hoping to make a drawing/print/painting of a cormorant or two for Beautiful Beasts and wanted to get to know the shapes a bit better. There were about 6, two young ones and two wing drying adults and a couple swimming around.
You can’t get very close to them, they are very shy, so it’s really a case of watching and making rough sketches.
They do, however, stay quite still on the breakwater drying their wings or snoozing.
A4 Sketchbook: First sketches of cormorants on the breakwater (with a couple of bouncing jackdaws at the bottom of the page).
A4 Sketchbook: More very quick sketches of the wing drying while they were still on the breakwater.
Some of them were still there when I left. Others took to the water before flying off. They make quite a bit of noise when they take off and I love the big flapping wings and the big trailing feet
The quickest and probably the best sketch A5 sketchbook
A5 sketchbook colour note.
The breakwater is orangy red. which makes an interesting contrast.
More cormorants to come.
