Cormorant, Double-crested

Physical Features The Double-crested Cormorant is the most numerous and widespread North American cormorant. Adult Double-crested Cormorants are black or dark brown with an orange-yellow patch of skin at the base of their bills. In breeding plumage, adults have two whitish tufts behind their eyes, hence the term 'double-crested.' Yearlings are pale on the upper breast and darker on the belly. Double-crested Cormorants have slender, hook-tipped bills that are often tipped up at an angle as they swim. They can be distinguished from the other Cormorant species by their thicker bills and by the pronounced kink in their long necks in flight. The Double-crested Cormorant is 70 to 90 cm/27.6 to 35.4 inches in length, with a wingspan of 114 to 123 cm/ 44.9 to 48.4 inches, and weighs 1.2 to 2.5kg/42.3 to 88.2 ounces. Habitat The Double-crested Cormorant is the most populous and widespread North American cormorant, thriving in numbers from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska, all the way to Florida and Mexico. It is also the only cormorant founds in large numbers inland as well as on the coast. Its population explosion throughout its range is increasingly under fire for the demise of sport fishing and devastation of fish farms. Cormorants usually perch on rocks, sandbars, or pilings near fishing sites and forage at lakes, slow-moving rivers, ponds, estuaries, both inland and on open coastlines. Their breeding colonies are typically located on small rocky or sandy islands, or on the exposed tops of offshore rocks. They may also nest or roost in trees, especially when predators are present. The cormorant winters in ice-free areas in the north, along both southern Alaska (on the west coast) and southern New England (on the east coast). It can be found as far south as Mexico and the Bahamas. It migrates from the coldest parts of its breeding range, such as eastern Canada, and has occurred in Europe on rare occasions, being sighted in the Azores, Great Britain and Ireland. Diet The Double-crested Cormorant catches its favorite food by diving from the surface of the water, chasing its prey below and grasps fish in the bill without stabbing. They eat an assortment of prey, primarily slow moving, schooling species of fish, and occasionally consume insects, crustaceans and amphibians, depending on what's available. Meat Double-crested Cormorant meat has a strong, smelly, fish-like taste mainly due to their marine diet. Behavior Double-crested Cormorants are sociable birds usually found in colonies, often with other aquatic birds. Single males begin searching for females shortly after choosing a nesting site. The male brings nest-building material to the female, who does most of the construction. The nest, eventually a platform of sticks and debris, may be found on a rocky cliff near water, on the ground on an island, or in a tree. It is made up of sticks and junk materials such as rope, deflated balloons, fishnet, and plastic debris, including parts of dead birds. As the breeding season continues, droppings cement together the nest materials. Both parents incubate the 3-4 pale blue eggs for 28 days before they hatch. The emerging young are fed regurgitated food fed to them by both parents, who also watch over them. After leaving the nest, the young roam the colony in crèches returning to the nest site to be fed. The young are completely independent of their parents at 10 weeks of age. Double-crested Cormorants have a deep, guttural grunt call.

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