There is an island in the sea called Limuw.
On the rocks at the edge of Limuw, where the waves wash up and the fog comes in, there is a bird standing very still.
He is black. Shiny black, like a wet stone. In the sun, his feathers shine a little bit green and a little bit purple, like oil on water.
He is the pelagic cormorant. He lives on the rocks of Limuw and on the rocks of many other shores.
Can you guess what he is doing?
Look at him carefully.
His wings are open wide.
Not to fly. He is not flying. He is standing still on a rock, with his wings held out on both sides, like this.
Can you stand up and try it? Arms out wide, like the cormorant. Good.
This is how the cormorant stands.
Why does he do this? Here is the thing about cormorants. Their feathers are not like duck feathers. Duck feathers push the water away — that is why a duck floats on top of a pond.
A cormorant is different. A cormorant wants to go into the water. A cormorant wants to go under the water, way down, where the fish are.
So his feathers soak up water like a sponge. And when they are wet and heavy, down he goes — swoop — under the waves, down and down, past the kelp, past the little silver fish, all the way down, chasing one good big fish with his feet kicking and his wings steering.
He can hold his breath for a long time. He can dive deeper than a tree is tall — way, way down.
And then, when he has caught his fish and eaten it, he comes back up to the surface, and he flies to a rock.
And then —
He stands like this.
With his wings out wide. To dry.
He stands and stands. The sun warms his feathers. The wind lifts them. The little drops of water fall off, one at a time. And after a long while, his feathers are dry again.
And then he can fly. And then, when he gets hungry, he can dive again.
This is how the cormorant lives, on Limuw.
· · ·
On the north shore of Limuw, there is a small sheltered cove between two headlands. The cove has a name. It is called Ch’oloshush. That is a Chumash word, and it means a group of sea birds.
The Chumash people who named it called it that because, when you arrive at the cove, this is what you see:
Cormorants. Pelicans. Gulls. Birds standing on the rocks with their wings held out wide, drying in the sun. A group of sea birds. A cove full of birds who just came up from the water and are waiting to go back down.
That was the name of the place. The name of the place is still the name of the place. And the birds are still standing on the rocks.
On Limuw.
At Ch’oloshush.
· · ·
Now it is late afternoon. The cormorant is still on his rock. His wings are almost dry.
He tilts his head at a wave. He watches a pelican fly by, low and slow. He feels the warm sun on his feathers.
He is ready to dive again. But not quite yet. For now, he is just standing —
— like this.
On Limuw.
For the Teacher
About this story
The pelagic cormorant is a real bird, common along the Pacific coast from Alaska to Baja California and on the rocks of Santa Cruz Island (Limuw) and the other Channel Islands. Everything in this story is true: cormorants really do have feathers that soak up water (so they are less buoyant when diving), they really do dive as deep as 130+ feet, they really do hold their breath for up to two minutes, and they really do stand on rocks with wings outstretched to dry in the sun between dives.
The story also introduces a second real Chumash place name — Ch’oloshush, a small sheltered cove on the north shore of Santa Cruz Island, named for the cormorants and pelicans that have always roosted on the rocks there. The National Park Service documents the name’s gloss as “a group of sea birds.”
The words in this story
Limuw
LEE-moo
the Chumash name for Santa Cruz Island. Means in the sea.
Ch’oloshush
ch’oh-LOH-shoosh
a small cove on the north shore of Limuw. Means a group of sea birds.
The little mark at the start of Ch’oloshush (that tiny apostrophe) is called a glottal stop. It is the small catch in your throat in the middle of the word uh-oh. The sound exists in English, but we don’t write it down. In Chumash, it is a full sound, and it has its own little mark. Don’t worry if your pronunciation is imperfect — children don’t need it to be perfect. The honoring is in the trying.
A stand-up moment
This story is designed for kids to stand up in the middle and put their arms out wide, like the cormorant. The whole-body gesture locks the image in. If your group is a wiggly one, this is a good story to rotate in when they need to move. You can also repeat “This is how the cormorant stands” as a group movement game between stories.
If a child asks
“Why do his feathers get wet? Doesn’t that feel bad?”
Ducks have oily feathers that push water away, so they float. Cormorants don’t have the same oil — their feathers soak up a little bit of water so they can sink down under the waves to catch fish. It’s what their body is designed to do. When they come back up, they feel the sun drying them out, which probably feels nice.
“How deep can he dive, really?”
Pelagic cormorants have been recorded diving as deep as 138 feet. That is about as tall as a very tall apartment building. They hold their breath for up to two minutes while they swim down there, hunting fish on the bottom.
“Can we go see them?”
Yes. Cormorants are easy to spot along many California beaches and rocky shores, not just on Limuw. If your group takes a walk by the ocean, keep an eye out for a shiny black bird standing on a rock with its wings out wide. That is almost certainly a cormorant drying off between dives.
A note on care
The stand-up-and-be-a-cormorant moment is the heart of this story. A child’s body learns a bird from the inside that way — which is better than being told about it. The Chumash name Ch’oloshush enters gently in the second half, carried by the cormorants who made the cove what it is.