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May 29, 2004

Double Crested Cormorant

I am the crazy bird lady, woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Anyway.

I took photos of the double crested cormorant that is hanging around by the pond. Earlier this year there was a whole family of them - four juveniles and two adults - but for some reason all of them left ... except this one juvenile. I know it's young because it still had light-colored feathers on its chest. A full-grown double crested cormorant is all black.

I have named him Big Bird. Here he is!

double_crested_cormorant.jpg

A few nights ago I saw Big Bird hanging around the tree beside my apartment. And then to my surprise, he jumped up into the tree. Of course, bird + tree = normal, but this is a ... big bird. It's probably two feet tall. I'd never seen a big waterfowl like that get up into a tree. It would be like seeing a duck in a tree.

ASIDE: I threw down some bird seed this morning and five minutes later mama duck and the eight (yay!) babies trotted over. They only fed for about 45 seconds before the male ducks spooked them and they ran down to the water.

Double crested cormorants don't have fully waterproof feathers, so they often have to spread open their wings to let the feathers dry off so they can fly again. Like this:

spread_your_wings.jpg

I've seen them spread out like this both on land and in the water. It's pretty weird looking. And SOMETIMES, when they're not expecting it, they get attacked by the biggest pigeon known to man (courtesy of perspective):

pigeon_attack.jpg

Posted by Highwaygirl on May 29, 2004 08:53 AM to the category Animals
Comments

I have seen a duck in a tree. It was some crazy ass shit, yo.

Posted by: overg at May 29, 2004 10:33 PM