Everyone has a crow in their neighbourhood with a call that sounds like the ring of an old phone, amirite?  And when I say "old phone", I don't mean an old smartphone, but one of the first cordless phones or an old bakelite rotary phone with a handset complete with transmitter at one end and receiver at t'other.

Yes. Everyone has a crow in their neighbourhood that sounds like that. A standout crow, if you like. Shunned by its brethren and er... sesren? for NOT being able to produce a proper crow CAW like THIS.... but instead like THIS.

But we lucky folk in North Bracknell not only have an "old phone crow" but also a standout cormorant too.

Every day if I can, but certainly a few times a week at least, I try to take a five mile walk around the 'hood. These walks get me away from my computer, clear my mind, strengthen my back and probably do me the world of good I expect.

Regular readers of this blog may appreciate that whilst on my walks, I tend to notice the local wildlife.

And I've REGULARLY noticed a rogue cormorant flying in large laps around North Bracknell.  On its tod. Sometimes high. Sometimes quite low. But almost invariably (if that isn't an oxymoron... and in fact it is!) stubbornly just flying round and round in giant laps above North Bracknell. And never seeming to land.

It's weird.

It should be on the Thames with the others. 

Or on one of many large reservoirs  and/or gravel pits in this part of the world, where one can find (much to the anglers' disgust) dozens of these (former) sea or coastal birds.

But our rogue cormorant here over North Bracknell is a rebel. A loner. A maverick cormorant existing on the fringes of cormorant society.

It almost makes me wonder whether it's a real cormorant or not.

I watched it this morning doing laps in a rare blue sky over North Bracknell - and thought to myself...

"I wonder. I wonder if that weird cormorant (that doesn't behave like any other cormorant) isn't, in fact, a cormorant at all".

"Perhaps it's some kind of clever drone -put up over North Bracknell each morning to check on the traffic movement or local residents".

"Yeah. Perhaps it's a police cormorant".

As I finished my walk, I strolled past Farley Moor Lake. 

And as I strolled past this lake in North Bracknell... I amazingly saw this cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) actually land on the lake.

So "it can't be a drone can it?" I thought... 

... as a police car drove by me, very slowly, with both police officers inside looking at the part of the lake that the cormorant just landed on.

Hmmmmm…..