White patches
Great Cormorants have a large sign, only visible in the summer, to show they are adults and ready to breed. It’s a …
Cloaca
Birds, like most vertebrates, apart from many mammals, have a cloaca. Cloaca is Latin for sewer and is the combined intestinal, urinary …
Hanging out the washing
I love seeing a Great Cormorant drying its wings in the sunshine. Especially when you can see the beautiful bronze sheen on …
A tracery of droplets
A visit to Chard Reservoir is always a welcome trip. I’m here because my son and his partner are using it as …
Cormorant in Brixham Harbour
The colours of Brixham boats reflected in the water of the harbour make a superb backdrop to the bird life here. Especially …
Lyme Bay Great Cormorants
We’re on the water guided by Mike Langman again. It’s a great opportunity to see Great Cormorants, Phalacrocorax carbo, from the sea, …
Great Cormorant v Shag
One of the trickiest id challenges for me when I re-started birding was telling the difference between a Great Cormorant and a …
Cormorant sunset
I’ve come for the day to RSPB Lodmoor in Weymouth. It’s grey and dull and there’s little action from the wildlife but …
The Cormorant at the Quay
As I walk down to the town Quay I see a Cormorant surface with a huge fish. I start running towards it …
Cormorant in breeding plumage
I’ve never seen a Great Cormorant in breeding plumage before. When I spot one far off in the channel of the River …
The Sea Ravens of Rome
I’m spending a few days exploring the urban wildlife of Rome. I’m in the centre of the city, on the River Tevere, …
Close to a Cormorant
It’s a beautiful morning in my local country park. I see another photographer and we exchange pleasantries. He says it’s much better …
Cormorants on the Tiber
Walking along the Tiber in Rome there are two waterfront boulevards. On one side it is beautiful, clean, well-lit, marked with a …
Cormorants have a serious image problem
Walking along the River Tiber in Rome, or the Tevere in Roma, as the Romans call it, is a shock. It’s in …
Cormorants in the city centre
In the centre of Bristol, just next to Prince Street Bridge, is a small group of Common Cormorants. They have been fishing …
Hanging out the washing to dry
If your species is going to have to swim to eat and survive, you would have thought that you would have evolved …
Cormorant
To me, Great Cormorants are proof, if proof be needed, that birds are descended from Dinosaurs. They are just so… reptilian!
Cormorants – forty years ago in my nature notebooks
Forty years ago on 17 August 1976, when I was a 12 year old boy, I saw Cormorants while on holiday in …