An eel-stealing

Here is a drama in three quick acts, witnessed on the Mystic today.  The dramatis personae are a great cormorant, a great black-backed gull, and an eel.

In Act I, the cormorant has fished up a good-sized eel.  The gull skulks at right, waiting for its chance.

In Act II, the gull seizes its moment:  as the cormorant flips the eel up, the gull pounces.

And in Act III, we have our denouement. The cormorant has lost out.

In fact, this scenario played itself out two or three times in the few minutes I was there, with a couple different gulls.  I couldn't help calling to mind the cormorant fisheries of the East, where the cormorant fishes only to serve its master.

On another front, a few signs of spring are evident.  While the winter ducks are still present in large numbers, the grackles and blackbirds have come back, in the first seasonal movement of note.  Birds are singing, too -- mockingbirds, cardinals, song sparrows. They're ready, we're ready, and only the weather is missing its cue.