Great Cormorant
Brixham Breakwater, South Devon, United Kingdom
The great cormorant or Eurasian cormorant is widespread and common throughout Europe, Asia, North America and sub-Saharan Africa. The African sub-species is white breasted unlike all other greater cormorants in other parts of the world.
Habitat
It is found around coasts, estuaries and on freshwater lakes and rivers well stocked with fish. Birds in the northern temperate regions migrate in winter to coasts further South
Feeding
The great cormorant is a piscivore, diving for fish species such as wrasse, flathead and common sole. Fish taken are larger and heavier in winter than in summer in order to meet higher energy needs., The great cormorant dives to depths of nearly 20 feet (5.8 metres) and remains submerged for on average around 30 seconds.
Breeding
Great cormorants frequently nest in colonies close to rivers, wetlands and inshore waters using the same site every year. They build their stick nests in trees, on cliff ledges or on the ground on predator free rocky islands. Three to five pale blue eggs are incubated by both parents who also feed the chicks by regurgitation. Great cormorants are monogamous and pairs may remain together for several years.
Wlidfile Specials
- Fishermen see the great cormorant as a threat to their livelihoods and they hunted it nearly to extinction, although conservation efforts have since been very successful.
- Chinese and Japanese fishermen use great cormorants to catch fish, training them to dive on a leash and with a line round their throats to stop them swallowing larger fish so they can be retrieved.
- In Norway 10,00 great cormorants are shot every year for food.
- In northern Norway great cormorants are believed to bring luck to villagers if they gather in numbers nearby.
- According to another Norwegian legend, people who die at sea whose bodies are not recovered, can visit their homes only in the form of a great cormorant.
- Great cormorants have evolved the ability to hear fish underwater but, as a result, hearing out of water is less sharp than that of other bird species.