The most elite fishers.

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Cormorants sitting on a pontoon on the lake at UEA campus.

A double-crested cormorant. Double-Crested Cormorant
Cormorants are one of my favourite species of bird. They are larger waterbirds that have a reptilian look due to their long necks. They feed on fish and are normally seen with their wings held out stretched in order to let them dry. They have a wingspan of around 150 cm and weigh over 2 kg. The Uk has very important wintering numbers for global standings. There are 9,018 breeding pairs in the UK and in winter 41,000 individual birds. Cormorants have very powerful beaks which is one way they distinguish with shags. Their scientific name is Phalacrocorax carbo and they are in the bird family cormorants and shags. They are doing quite well under the protection of The Wildlife and Countryside Act which has allowed them to have a green UK conservation status meaning they are under least concern. Due to them being in the same family as shags, they are very similar birds. Other than cormorants having more powerful beaks than shags, there is also other ways that they can be told apart. Cormorants have a shallower angle between their forehead and beak than shags do and all have more yellowish skin around their faces. Shags are coastal birds whereas cormorants can also ben found inland. Shags are more solidarity birds than cormarants and are often found alone compared to cormorants travelling in large breeding colonies.
A cormorant fanning its wings to dry them. _K0A4557-copy_1.jpg

The reason they stand with their wings spread apart is because they have less preen oil than other birds which means their feathers get socked instead of shedding water like in other birds such as ducks. Wet feathers can make it easier for underwater hunting as it aids with agility and speed.


They create their nests out of plant matter such as twigs and reeds. Before 1981 in the UK, cormorants were pretty exclusively coastal breeders, but they have now started to breed inland. By 2012, it has been recorded that there are 89 inland breeding sites of cormorants in England. However a lot of these sites were just single nests for a single breeding season. Their breeding colonies are now very widely distributed across the UK and they more commonly nest as colonies. One issue with nesting together us that many birds produce a lot of droppings. These droppings kill the trees that the cormorants breed in meaning that the breeding site reduces each year. There are advantages of breeding inland. One advantage is that when breeding inland, cormorants have long breeding season meaning that competition for food is reduced as chicks aren't all growing up at the same time as appose to coastal breeding where all chicks hatch at a pretty similar time.

A cormorant assisting a fisherman. url
The species of the native cormorant to the UK, P. carbo carbo, has declined by 11% since 1986 and some larger declines in Northern Scotland being 60%. Inland populations have increased rapidly over the last few years and colonisation has caused a stabilisation in their numbers.













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