Post pictures and your experiences or other writings of these much maligned and misunderstood Birds.

Anhingas welcome also.

Promoting Cormorant awareness and appreciation, one post at a time.

i love cormo rant

>>4979341 (OP)
I sometimes see these guys on the canal I go for walks along. They are very cool. Id love to see one catching fish

Imperial Shag
Gulosus aristotelis

>thanks for catching that fish bro, you don't mind if I take my fair share, right?

>>4979341 (OP)
Did they name shags after shagging or other way around

As with their closest relatives, the Pelicans, Cormorants also have a beak-pouch, or gular sac, though it is not as extensive or obvious, only going about halfway up the mandible, as opposed to the full length in the Pelicans.

Sometimes it will be distended during calling or display, Here, a Pied Cormorant is showing it very well distended. About as prominent as you will see in a Cormorant.

They don't rely on it as much as the Pelicans for catching & draining their prey, though like them, it does facilitate the feeding of the young, making it easier for them to get down into the parent's crop to extract the food.

All others in the order Pelecaniformes share this feature, along with totipalmate feet, with all four toes being webbed.

>>4981601
According to Wiktionary, the sexual term appears to be...

"From Middle English schaggen, a variant of Middle English schoggen (“to shake; shake off; tremble”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps a byform of Middle English schokken (“to shake; move rapidly”), related to Middle Low German schokken (“to shake; tremble”). Alternatively, perhaps ultimately from Proto-Germanic *skakkōną (“to shake”), specifically continuing a post-Proto-Germanic variant *skagg-, where the non-singular stem *skag- caused the analogical replacement of the stem-final voiceless geminate consonants with voiced geminates, which was then leveled throughout the paradigm."

As for the Birds, the term derives from shag as meaning rough or coarse hair, and refers to the head crests and tufts that a number of Cormorant species possess, either year-round or just during the breeding season.

As for which labeling was first, I haven't been able to determine.

kinomal

>>4985214
I forgot to mention, they also use it for thermoregulation, by "fluttering".

By rapidly vibrating it with open mouth, it is an effective means of cooling down.

The double crest of the Double Crested Cormorant.
Present during the breeding season.

>>4995900
take me now

>>4981601

>>4997798
lol

>>4991491
sharks be like:
>excuse me sir what are you doing here you are not a fish you are a bird

>>4979826
I once saw one catching a fish and then dropping it, after emerging to the surface

>>5001220
Thats pretty cool. Have you seen how they fish with them in China?

anhingas have such a wonderful name. like someone looked at the bird and made a strange mouth noise and was like yeah that's its name forever

I've rarely seen cormorants until my birthday this year when I noticed a colony on a dead tree in the lake right behind my house. At least one of them has tried following a flock of pelicans to catch their leftovers. Just a couple days ago I saw one with a fish wider than its head sticking halfway out its throat, couldn't tell if it swallowed or dropped it. The roost is or was right next to a pair of trumpeter swans' nest too which is funny because the parents chased geese far off the water a month ago. They're double cresteds if anyone's wondering.

>>5001332
The human brain is the only thing that has ever named itself

Double-Crested Cormorant
Nannopterum auritum
Breeding plumage, resulting in the namesake double crests and brightening of the mouth.

Close-up and in good light, Cormorants can show some amazing coloration.

Red-Faced Cormorant
Urile urile

Pelagic Cormorant
Urile pelagicus

Great Cormorant
Phalacrocorax carbo

Cormorants are much prettier than I had realized
>>5009718
This one almost has the coloration of a peacock

>>5007461
last thing fish sees