For about a week this summer, we had a very different kind of visitor in the pond behind our home in mid-Missouri.
Our usual inhabitants are geese, ducks, owls, hawks, and great blue herons, besides the little birds.
But we noticed something very different about this bird, as it sat there on the stump of an old pine with its wings spread out for minutes at a time.
It was smaller than a goose and floated lower in the water than a duck.
Then, like a duck, we would see it would dive under the water for some food.
A little research quickly told us that it was a young cormorant. Young, because it’s breast had a yellowish tint instead of being all black.
Unfortunately my 7omm Sony zoom could not quite get close enough to get some of the spectacular pictures, like these three from the web, but you can get a feel from the slide show below, what we viewed from the house.
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And without republishing the tons of literature on the internet on Cormorants, here are a few links.
Cornell Lab of Ornithology:
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/double-crested_cormorant/id
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cormorant
Creagrus:
http://creagrus.home.montereybay.com/cormorants.html
Pretty cool bird!
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ColorMe4Life 