Great Cormorant

Photos copyright: monacoeye • Danube Delta, Romania • May 2009 • Do not copy without permission

Bird name: Great Cormorant
Latin: Phalacrocorax carbo
Other: Great Black Cormorant • Black Cormorant • Black Shag (NZ) • Grand Cormoran (Fr) • Cormoran Commun • Cormoranul mare (Ro)
Family: Phalacrocoracidae • Cormorants

The Great Cormorant is a large bird, widespread in Europe, Asia and Australasia.

The European bird turns white around the head and chest during courtship, with a white patch near the thigh. Juveniles are brown with whitish stomachs. Adults have a yellow stripe below the eye spanning both halves of the back of the jaw, a white cheek, and irises are green.

Great Cormorants can form very large flocks and were seen below fishing with Pelicans in the sea off the Danube Delta with gulls in attendance above.

They swim very low in the water, often with only necks and head sticking out, and famously dry their outstretched wings in the sun.

Cormorants in general, or shags as they are also called, are probably distant relatives of the Pelicans and under the Sibley-Ahlquist system fall under Ciconiiformes.