The great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) is a large, widely distributed waterbird known for its versatile hunting skills, striking black plumage, and distinctive wing-drying posture. It inhabits coastal and inland waters across Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and parts of North America, thriving in both marine and freshwater environments. An agile diver, it hunts fish with precision, […]
The Christmas Island frigatebird (Fregata andrewsi) has a small declining population which breeds within on just one small island. Allrhough the birds leave the breeding grounds and disperse over a large part of the Indian Ocean, it is not known to breed anywhere else. The Christmas Island Frigatebird is the rarest of the five species […]
This species occupies a very area on the Chatham Islands, New Zealand. The past 10 years, surveys indicate that the species is in decline. In 2011 the population was estimated to be about 1000 individuals. The breeding colonies suffered much from agricultural activities and feral mammals. These colonial ground breeding species trample their eggs while […]
Txamsem went walking, not knowing which way to turn. He went toward the sea; and, behold! he saw a house some distance away. He came near, entered, and sat down on one side of the fire. A man was there with his wife. This was the house of Chief Cormorant. The man’s wife arose and […]
The Kwakiutl coastal Indians of British Columbia say the birds did not select their own costumes, but that one of their ancestors painted all the birds he found at a certain place. When he reached the cormorant his colors were exhausted and he had only charcoal left, hence the cormorant is wholly black. A favorite […]
In Greek folklore fables the cormorant was once a wool-merchant. He entered into a partnership with the bramble and the bat, and they freighted a large ship with wool. She was wrecked and the firm became bankrupt. Since that disaster the bat skulks about until midnight to avoid his creditors, the cormorant is forever diving […]
Native dancers throughout California commonly blow bird bone whistles to accompany their movements. The shrill sound of the whistles was not appreciated by the 18th century Spanish explorer Pedro Fages, who encountered them among the Chumash. These people have been playing bird bone whistles for 3000 years, up to the present day. Archaeological examples include […]
Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster) Science Article 4 abstract Pseudo-eggs, foreign round objects, notably eggs of other speciesor pebbles, are common in some ground-nesting species, and havebeen reported especially in larids (Sugden 1947, Twomey 1948,Coulter 1980, Conover 1985). As many as 10% of Ring-billedGull Larus delawarensis nests in Washington, USA includedpseudo-eggs (Conover 1985). The nests of […]
Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster) Science Article 1 abstract Sex differences in the foraging behaviour of adults have been observed in a number ofsexually size-dimorphic birds, and the usual inference has been that these sex-specificdifferences are driven primarily by differences in body size. An alternative explanation is thatforaging differences result from sex differences unrelated to size, […]
Brown Booby (Sula leucogaster) Science Article 5 abstract species of the Sulidae family, which comprisesgannets and boobies (Carboneras 1992).Brown Boobies are pan-tropical birds thatnest on a wide variety of habitats (Dorward1962a, 1962b; Skutch 1976, Nelson 1978).Brown Boobies nest on much steeper terrainthan most boobies and gannets (Nelson 1978,Carboneras 1992); for this reason, it seemsthat this […]