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Cormorants
The Cormorants are a fairly large family of fish eaters residing along freshwater and saltwater shores around the world, yet all are so closely related that all are usually placed within a single genus Phalacrocorax. Despite spending much time in the water, they do not possess the waterproofing oil of other seabirds and so must spend much time drying their wings. That's what the Crowned Cormorant at Cape Town, South Africa, is doing (left).
Cormorants are found almost everywhere that water meets shore. They use traditional sites for roosting, sunning, and nesting. These tend to be on islets, jetties, docks, or drowned trees with a 360 degree view to avoid predators. Cormorants are often easy to see, but they can be quite difficult to approach.
Clumsy on land, cormorants form colonies that are safe from mammalian predators. These can be offshore islets or jetties, but some build nests (or use old heron nests) in bare dead trees in water or perched on inaccessible cliffs.
Cormorants
The Cormorants are a fairly large family of fish eaters residing along freshwater and saltwater shores around the world, yet all are so closely related that all are usually placed within a single genus Phalacrocorax. Despite spending much time in the water, they do not possess the waterproofing oil of other seabirds and so must spend much time drying their wings. That's what the Crowned Cormorant at Cape Town, South Africa, is doing (left).
Cormorants are found almost everywhere that water meets shore. They use traditional sites for roosting, sunning, and nesting. These tend to be on islets, jetties, docks, or drowned trees with a 360 degree view to avoid predators. Cormorants are often easy to see, but they can be quite difficult to approach.
Clumsy on land, cormorants form colonies that are safe from mammalian predators. These can be offshore islets or jetties, but some build nests (or use old heron nests) in bare dead trees in water or perched on inaccessible cliffs.