Double-crested Cormorant

Photo credit to Liz Stewart

Cormorants are fish-eaters to the bone, literally: dense bones, large webbed feet, and feathers that aren’t waterproof make it easy for them to hunt underwater. Unfortunately these characteristics make them look quite undignified above the surface. Unlike ducks and geese, they don’t want to spend too much time soaking in the water. They prefer to rest on buoys, bridges, or pilings, with their wings spread to let them dry. They aren’t the most graceful fliers, either, and they don’t migrate nearly as far as many other birds.

Cormorants will nest either on the ground or in trees. Dad gathers the nesting material and brings it to Mom, who constructs the nest. You might think that your human baby poops a lot, but cormorants and their babies can make such big piles of excrement that they kill the host tree. When the trees die and fall down, stubborn cormorants will simply nest on the ground in the same place.

I saw this cormorant April 6 at Balboa Lake in Los Angeles. (You know you’re obsessed when the highlight of your family trip to Universal Studios is seeing a pair of Bell’s Vireos singing from their nest near a local reservoir, but that’s beside the point.) Double-crested Cormorants are also a common sight in Vancouver.