The rest of the story.
Yesterday I posted this photo of a Double-crested Cormorant intensely watching a “disturbance” that had just broken out on the water maybe 50′ in front of ‘him’ and to my left. Immediately after I took the photo the cormorant rushed over to join the brouhaha at the same time I was swinging my lens to my left to photograph it. At that time I said that I’d post photos of the disturbance “soon”. Today is the day.
The thirteen photos below are presented in the order they were taken but I took too way too many to include all of them here so there are ‘skips”.
The disturbance was a food fight, initially involving three other cormorants duking it out over a rainbow trout. Here one of the three cormorants is hard to see but…
he’s there, almost climbing up over the back of the bird with the fish.
At first they all had their backs to me but the light angle was good for a decent exposure on nearly black birds so…
we can still follow the action of the individual cormorants reasonably well.
As for me, well I was just firing away with no idea what I was photographing, other than it was a serious and very loud fight with all of their wings flapping against the water and each other. I didn’t even know how many birds were involved or if they were all cormorants. Or not.
At times all I could distinguish was a jumble of black feathers and flying water with the trout being the most identifiable individual in the bunch.
At that point, Johnny-Come-Lately finally showed up – the cormorant I’d been photographing when the fight started.
So now there were four of them but one or more were often underwater because cormorants can actually swim underwater as fast or faster than they can run/fly across the water’s surface. Their strategy seemed to be to swim underwater to the front of the bird with the fish and then try to reach up out of the water and snatch the fish out of that bird’s beak.
At times the cormorants were hard to see through all of the flying water. They were really creating a ruckus.
Here it looks like there’s only one bird but…
the other three were using their submarine strategy to get closer to the fleeing cormorant with the fish and…
pop up in a more…
advantageous position. But by now it was too late – the fish had already been swallowed. Or nearly so.
So the fight was over. The cormorant who ate the fish, in the middle on the left, almost seemed to gloat over his victory.
Cormorants often forage for food in groups and I’m convinced that part of that strategy involves opportunistic kleptoparasitism. I’ve seen these food fights a few times in the past but this series is my best documentation of the behavior. So far.
Ron
Note: Image techs for this series are in the range of 1/1600 – 1/2500, f/5.6, ISO 800, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc
How fun to watch and capture the action! I won’t eat raw fish either, I am surprised Haley will.
Thanks, April. I’m pretty fussy about fish I eat, even when it’s cooked. But I do like some of it a lot.
How long did the food fight last? I’m guessing between 20 and 40 seconds…?
Cheryl, I’d say about 5 seconds. 7 seconds tops. Keep in mind that my camera takes 12 photos per second.
Now that’s what my mama called a kerfuffle!
Arwen, “kerfuffle” is what one of my friends on Facebook called it. I told her I wish I’d used that word in my text. Or maybe even in my title.
Looks like it might have been easier just to go fishing for their own.
Probably…
What an incredible series.
How the first bird retained his/her fish shows determination to the max. I wonder how it sat? My wimpy digestion would definitely be affected. Badly.
EC, I’d have trouble with raw fish, no matter how big it was. I’ve never even tasted sushi, and never will, on the chance that I’ll get some raw fish in it. As a biologist I know too many things about parasites…
Fun, fun, fun! I love splash scenes though I don’t have the kind of dedicaded audience you do that is willing to sit through 10 or 12 or 14 shots in a sequence but the fun of getting them is worth it and and reliving the fun as often as I want to is worth it. And now I get to share in your fun as well. Great sequence. Glad you were feeling well enough to process all of them today.
Granny Pat, I processed some of them the day before, so I didn’t have to do all of them in one sitting, which helped.
Wowzers! Fabulous shots, Ron. That is some food fight! And they do this on the regular. I can’t imagine the effect of all that extra stress on their nervous systems. I’m glad that the first bird got to eat his fish and I’m imagining a little gloaty “burp” toward his buddies in the last shot.
If he burped I didn’t hear it, Marty. 🙂 But he sure seemed proud of himself.
What a great sequence Ron.
Thank you for sharing.
Thanks, Patrick.
What a great series! Amazing contrasts. With the calm in the first and last photos, you’d never guess the fury in between. It’s neat, too, how the fight all seems to take place in that band of roiling blue water, while the green water above and below looks undisturbed!
And that looks like a pretty good-sized fish!
Thank you for sitting at your computer long enough to put this all together. Hope your back didn’t complain too much.
Looks like “mortal combat” ! I wondered if any of the birds in such a fracas ever get seriously injured…….what a “catch” on your end, though !
“I wondered if any of the birds in such a fracas ever get seriously injured”
Kris, I’ve never seen it happen and Cornell makes no mention of such incidents that I could find.
This is outstanding documentation of a thrilling food fight. I have seen these, but never attempted to photograph one since I was so caught up in watching. Truly remarkable when the one who originally caught the fish can hang on and keep it in spite of all those challengers. Excellent photography Ron.
If it were not for our supermarkets and food providers we might be doing the same thing.
Everett, I guess I’ve been photographing birds for so long I automatically reach for my camera when something interesting happens. Hell, I even do that when I don’t have my camera with me!
If they don’t get the supply chain fixed and bring down food prices, what you describe in your last sentence may happen anyway…
Interesting.
And an new word for the day; kleptoparasitism!
Michael, now words are good words! Generally…
WOW! Amazing any of them but the one with the trout could really tell what was going on! A LOT of fish to get down during the rukus and then going from that to “nothing happening here”.. Wonderful series to capture, Ron. 🙂
Judy, it was amazing how fast that fish disappeared, once ‘he’ finally had a chance to swallow it.
Loved the photo’s and descriptive action! Thank you for sharing and interpreting! Those birds are amazingly fast and quick swimmers underwater. Once while snorkeling in a clear body of water, a black large projectile whizzed past me from under me to the surface of the water and scared the bejeebers out of me!! I looked up and it was a Cormorant flying away! Apparently I scared the bejeebers out of her too!
Terri, I’ve read that they’re extremely fast underwater but I’ve never experienced what you have.
Holy doodads as Granny Pat taught me. Beyond fantastic series. I am un-inviting mr cormorant to my next dinner party. Ron you can come.
“I am un-inviting mr cormorant to my next dinner party. Ron you can come”
Good. If he was there I probably wouldn’t get anything to eat.
“…my best documentation of the behavior. So far.”
I don’t know how you could top this, Ron. From beginning to end it’s a gripping account. Perhaps an FP top ten.