Cormorants
Here I am, beginning to flap my wings so they will dry. My wings aren’t waterproof, even though I swim in the water.
Oh, never mind, I’m preening instead. There’s plenty of time. Look at my beautiful eye color! I think I’m the only bird in the world who has aquamarine colored eyes. Don’t they look like jewels?
But I still need that flap and stretch……. I guess because my species dates from prehistoric times, I’m a little different than many other birds.
Ahhhh….. that’s better then! I’ve shaken off most of the water so now my wings can finish drying in the sun. Aren’t my wings beautiful to look at? They even help me to swim underwater so I can catch fish to eat. I like fish!
Zebra's Child 
What a beautiful introduction to a cormorant. A bird I had never heard of, but now – thanks to you and this sweet story – I do. Nicely done 🙂
Thank you 🙏 I enjoyed writing it!
You’re welcome!
I only just found this. Did you know that the Cormorant family is one of the oldest. It’s always struck me as odd that such an old family have never evolved waterproof feathers.
Yes, yes, yes! It’s one of the most ancient families. In fact, I had first written the piece with the comment, ” Since my species is s ancient, I don’t know why nature hasn’t given me waterproof feathers by now What’s up with that?” But since I ended up making it a piece partly for my young grandchildren, the way I had phrased it seemed a little sarcastic, I took it out. But yes, the lack of waterproof feathers baffles me. the only thing I can think of is that they seemed to be doing just fine the way they were. The survival problems they had for awhile were not due to evolution – they were due to human activity.
Thinking about it, I did come up with a theory years ago. I’m assuming a waterproof feather is more buoyant than a regular feather, the waterproof feather will repell water so will float more efficiently. So would waterproof feathers make a bird as big as a Cormorant to buoyant?
Yes, that is the theory. Also their body sits lower in the water than other water birds, so they can duck down and stay down while they swim. And wow, do they ever cover a lot of distance quickly under water! They swim so fast that I usually can’t predict where they will pop back up.
I didn’t realise that was a theory. Now I’m wondering if I read it somewhere or came up with it independently.
Either way, it’s an interesting piece of information. 🙂