Cormorants on the Willamette River
I like animals. I just don’t like them as much as plants. This is probably because when I get into the forest, I feel free and like a domestic dog I like to frolick and run and I get excited and talk loudly (what, your dog doesn’t talk loudly in the forest?). Sitting around waiting for a squirrel to run up my shoulder is the last thing I want to do. Maybe if I was there all the time there I would settle down, but I am not. So, I know my basic tracks and signs, I know when I smell porcupine shit before I see it. Heck I even know what a porcupine sounds like when nervous, do you? But I don’t really care about sneakin’ up on animals.
That said animals are pretty awesome, and it is a good thing to learn about them. The apartment complex that I live in has a dock on the Willamette River, and on top of each pole sits a cormorant. I decided it was time to learn more about these intriguing birds. I had to use Wikipedia since I lent my ex-boyfriend (not Urban Scout) my field guides and he decided to keep them quoting Trailer Park Boys ” think of it as a fine for being an asshole”.
- The word cormorant comes from the latin corvus marinus meaning sea raven
- There are lots of cormorants worldwide. Double-crested cormorants are wide spread in North America, and one of the few inland species. They live near lakes, rivers, and oceans.
- Double crested cormorants eat fish and sometimes snakes and amphibians. They hunt by swimming and diving up to 25 feet under water. Often they are seen swimming with just their head and neck above water. Afterward they are most commonly seen drying their wings, which are not wholly waterproof, a most distinctive characteristic.
- Another distinctive characteristic from which the double crested cormorant takes its name are the feathery tufts or “crests” on either side of the head, above the eye, which can be black or white and are only seen during breeding season
- They also have a patch of orange skin around the face.
- Sort of like owls cormorants throw up pellets containing bones of their prey
- Large pebbles are sometimes found in cormorant’s nests being treated as eggs
- Cormorant populations were greatly affected by DDT but have since rebounded. Because of this sport fisherman blame cormorants for declines in fish population and sometimes kill them illegally.
- I once met a very friendly cormorant named Ester at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh, PA!
Oh Cripes! I stepped on my spectacles again!
that sucks about your book.
That’s funny about the pebbles. These guys always make me think of Karana in Island of the Blue Dolphins and her cormorant cape. I wonder what it looked like.
I didn’t know they spit up pellets, either. : )
cormorants are also used by fisherman in china to catch fish for them. I remember that from a childrens book I had growing up called Bird Boy, about a mute boy who helped his father raise the cormorants to fish with.
here is a video about it I found
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=487_1244314532