(A re-posting of a favorite of mine. We are once again enjoying some time in Aruba. While the weather at home is improving, it has a ways to go to match the Caribbean breezes and warm ocean waves.

We are once again staying right near the Cormorant Tree (not it’s name, but it seems so with the crowd of birds.) Since I last wrote about them in 2015, some of those birds have passed on, others remain, and new ones have come to be.

The comforting rhythm of nature continues.)

My wife and I are spending some time in Aruba, escaping the single digit temperatures, snow, and ice of New England.

On our first day here, we went to the store and bought hotdogs.
Yes, hotdogs.
We have been craving a nice, well-done, burned skin hotdog on the grill for weeks. Talking about it as we watched the snow fall and wind chill dip lower and lower.

There is nothing that says warm summer evening like a well-burned hotdog. The crinkled skin nestled in the crispy onions, bathed in relish and mustard, embraced by a soft roll.

Nirvana.

As the sun set, I cooked the hotdogs and sipped a beer. I watched as a tree in the middle of a lagoon fill with Cormorants, those birds that swim underwater in their daily search for food.

Against the waning sun, purple red, orange yellow skies, watching them circle and land on the branches caught my eye. Like most of these type birds, the bodies appear heavier than they are, the seemingly fragile, thin branches easily supporting their deceptively light weight.

I’ve watched this phenomenon a couple of times now. (Once we had our hotdog fix, we moved on to Italian sausages!)

The daily gathering of the birds repeats each evening.

As each new wave of birds return, they join in a chorus of noises that sounds like a combination beer burp and growl.

At first I thought it a challenge or threat;
My branch, my branch
Get off, go away
And then I realized, it is a welcome home
Glad to see you, my friend
We’ve lived another day