(Posted by John Richardson <johnpr...@gmail.com> via moumn.org) After leaving McQuade Safe Harbor I notice 3 cormorants that have lifted of the lake and were trying to gain height. At the first glance the birds were at about a 30 degree angle in front of us about 300 yards away. The 3 birds started to kettle and were drifting towards us and eventually were right above us.
The first and most noticeable detail was the considerable small size of one of the individuals in comparison to the other obvious Double Crested Cormorant (DC), and the faster wing beat of the bird in question. I am familiar with this species in TX, and looked for fields marks to differenciate the two species. All is relative in the photos compared with actually seeing the bird in person. Therefore, what I can add to the photos is the birds where at the same height, or very close too. I looked for the tail to be the same length as the neck and beak and there does appear to be some support to this in the photos. Of course, one can not completely rule out the neck being at full extension, but there does appear to be some clear difference with the bird in question in comparison to the other two. I looked for the extent of yellow/orange throat as the neotropic has considerably less than the DC. in one of the photos you can see considerably less orange in the throat compared to the other 2 DC in the photo. If the bird was a juvenile it would still should show more orange on the throat if it was a DC, and a Juv DC would/should show a much more paler neck and chest. This is not a strict rule to observe as variation in color is possible, but would arguably be more likely to be bleached lighter in spring than being darker adding to the notion it is indeed a Neotropic. As pretext, yesterday we had very strong S/SW winds and extremely warm temps into the 90's in places. I would be interested in what others have to say? If deemed to be a DC I will remove it from the records. Thoughts anyone? Photos in the report. http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S29474263 John Richardson Duluth, MN ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
