Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE STORK-LIKE BIRDS

THE CORMORANTS (Family Phalacrocoracidm)

Cormorants Description

The Cormorants are birds between two and three feet in length, with an elongated, powerful body, short, stout legs, and a rather long neck. The wings are concave and rather short, reaching but little beyond the base of the tail; the third quill is longest. The tail consists of twelve or fourteen very stiff feathers. The face and throat are naked.

The plumage is usually very compact, dark-colored, and glossy, with greenish or bluish green reflections. The head is often crested and during the nesting season the head and neck are often ornamented with more or less conspicuous plumes of slender, hair-like feathers which disappear after the breeding season is over.

In the matter of distribution the Cormorants as a group are almost cosmopolitan, ranging from Greenland, Alaska, and Siberia on the north to New Zealand and Kerguelcn Island on the south, being, however, most abundant in the tropics. Some of the species enjoy a very wide range, as, for example, the Common Cormorant (P. carbo), which is found in Europe, Greenland, eastern North America, all of Africa, and through northern Asia and the Indian peninsula to China and Australia, while others are restricted to single islands. About a dozen forms are found in North America, three or four in Europe, some five in Africa, and, according to Buller, about ten in New Zealand.

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