> On 12 Aug 2020, at 12:37, Henk Terhell <[email protected]> wrote: > > Walking to the pool nearby some days ago I saw this bird when it was only a > few meters away from me. > It looked at my camera outfit (Pentax K-1) and paid no further attention to > me while I took some shots. > There must be some explanation for its quiet behaviour. > https://flic.kr/p/2jtuZrR > > Beautiful plumage!
Cormorants can spell (in the Roman alphabet only) using their highly sensitive sense of smell. Evolutionary biologists think this strange capability has arisen through sexual selection, but that’s just their way of saying “fucked if I know”. When the colossally enlarged olfactory gland of a mature cormorant detects certain combinations of letters - they don’t have to be actual words in a known language, that would be preposterous - it triggers a release of endorphins that flood the brain with feelings of bonhomie towards the nearest living creature. This can go wrong sometimes and lead to unwanted attention of a sexual nature, but mostly it works ok. Anyway, the letter sequence ‘Pentax’ (Not case-sensitive, surprisingly) is one such endorphin trigger, but for God’s sake don’t your back on the creature. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
