Comorant

Lizard Point wasn’t a wildlife stop. The plan was the coastline — the most southerly point in Britain, sea mist rolling in off the Channel, the kind of flat grey light that makes everything feel appropriately remote. The cormorants were just there.

A lens swap later and I was tracking them across the frame. Most shots were unremarkable — a bird, some sea, not much else. This one landed differently. The cormorant sits almost exactly centre frame, small against the expanse of choppy water and fog, the horizon completely dissolved into white. Nothing to anchor it, nothing to compete with it. Just the bird and a lot of nothing.

Cormorants aren’t glamorous subjects. They’re not puffins. But there’s something about the low, purposeful way they fly — wings beating hard, hugging the surface — that suits a miserable grey day perfectly.

Right place, right lens, right moment.