Cormorants and shags | Phalacrocoracidae

Aalscholvers | Cormoranes | Cormorants and shags

Long-bodied dark waterbirds with a long neck and a bill sharply hooked at the tip: the fish is gripped, not speared. They dive from the surface and swim under water with both feet at once; the legs are set far back, which makes walking laboured, and the stiff wedge of a tail works as a rudder. The plumage lets itself be partly soaked, which cuts buoyancy but obliges the bird to dry off after fishing with its wings half spread — the posture the whole family is known by. Even the Flightless Cormorant of the Galápagos, whose wings have shrunk to stubs, still holds them out in this way to dry. The nest of sticks, weed or guano stands in a colony on rock, in trees or in reedbeds; along the Humboldt Current the Guanay Cormorant breeds in huge colonies on the guano islands. Two to four pale blue eggs under a chalky coating, and naked young that put on black down within days.