Great Cormorant

Overview

Great Cormorant: Largest North American comorant. Black with bright yellow throat pouch bordered with white feathers. Expert swimmer, dives for fish, crustaceans. When wet holds wings in spread eagle position to dry. Strong direct flight with steady wing beats. Flies in V or straight line formation.

Range and Habitat

Great Cormorant: Native of the Americas and Greenland. Prefers rocky coasts with sheltered inshore waters.

INTERESTING FACTS

Great Cormorants are excellent swimmers and pursue prey underwater using its feet rather than its wings.
These birds are very sociable and colonies of up to 20,000 birds have been reported.
This is one of two species trained by human fisherman in Japan to help them fish. It has been known to swallow small pebbles allowing it to dive more easily.
A group of cormorants has many collective nouns, including a "flight", "gulp", "rookery", "sunning", and "swim" of cormorants.

The Great Cormorant is a very common and widespread seabird. It is found in Atlantic waters and nearby land areas, including coastlines of western Europe, Africa, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland and eastern coasts of North America. This species breeds mainly on these above named coastal areas. Nests are built on cliffs or in high trees, and occasionally in inland areas. This bird can move its eyes, and feeds on eels and other varieties of fish. The Great Cormorant was once hunted to near extinction, but populations are currently increasing. The current conservation rating for the great Cormorant is Least Concern.