365 Urban Species. #126: Double-crested Cormorant

[urbpan]

Photos by cottonmanifesto

Urban species #126: Double-crested cormorant Phalocrocorax auritus

This large, ancient-looking bird looks pretty out-of-place the first time you see one in the city. Swimming low in the water (looking like a "miniature Loch Ness Monster" according to one friend's first report) or perched on a pier, the double-crested cormorant is actually a frequent sight in coastal cities. Feeding mostly on salt water fish, cormorants will also happily travel into rivers and fly to ponds, if the fishing is good.

Cormorants swim after fish, allowing their feathers to become saturated as they "fly" under water. Their feathers are not waterproof, like duck feathers, so they have to perch with wings outstretched to let them dry. In tropical America, a cormorant relative called the anhinga can be seen in this posture, or swimming in canals and other waterways with just its head and neck out of water--earning it the nickname "snakebird."

Cormorants are found worldwide, including a flightless form in the Galapagos. In Asia humans developed a method of fishing, using cormorants with collars that prevented them from swallowing their prey. In Britain, cormorants are known as "shags," which I assume leads to bad jokes.

Comments

[agelena.livejournal.com]

A diving bird with feathers that aren't waterproof......Unreal.

[artemii.livejournal.com]

i love how cormorants look like they should be perching next to dinos rather than humans!

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

Just got a letter from some friends in Texas. They were out watching whooping cranes, and there was also a whole row of cormorants... with one very lost and confused flamingo standing in their row, apparently under the impression that he too was a cormorant. We immediately started making up dialogue that was supposed to sound like the cormorant language spoken with a pronounced flamingo accent...

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

What do flamingo accents sound like? I'm hearing Ricardo Montalban for some reason.

[(Anonymous)]

I love seeing these guys try to perch on a branch. It looks so awkward. Good job getting pictures of them. They usually avoid my camera like the plague.

http://juliajuliabohemian.blogspot.com/

shags

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,
aren't shags a separate species? I Ireland I was always taught that shags had no crest while cormorants did.
by the way, are there two days of mourning doves?
Wards pond is the proverbial dog's bo**ox!

Re: shags

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

In "Birds of Britain" (Sterry et al. 2001) the Shag is Phalocrocorax aristotelis while the Cormorant is P. carbo. Their illustration shows the shag with a crest and the cormorant without. However, in various places around the world, birds in the genus Phalocrocorax are named either "shag" or "cormorant," depending, probably, on whether the common name is intended for a British or American audience, or whether the bird was named by a speaker of British english or American english, or perhaps, if the new species looked more like aristotelis or carbo.

Thanks for the heads-up on the mourning dove issue, I'll check it out.

Re: shags

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks again. Entry 92 now reads "Mourning cloak."

Re: shags

[dobrien.livejournal.com]

Doh! that's the problem with just relying on memory instead of making sure with the book before commenting on things. Now that you say it, it does seem more like the shag had the crest...!
I know this reply is a long time after the original comment, but I thought I would reply anyway.