{"id":22559,"date":"2014-03-08T05:46:16","date_gmt":"2014-03-08T12:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=22559"},"modified":"2014-03-08T06:21:03","modified_gmt":"2014-03-08T13:21:03","slug":"cormorant-on-golden-pond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/08\/cormorant-on-golden-pond\/","title":{"rendered":"Cormorant On Golden Pond"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Double-crested Cormorant is a common species throughout most of the continental U.S. but its namesake “double crest” is seldom seen well.<\/p>\n

The crests, also called nuptial crests,\u00a0are supposedly “ear-like” (thus the species name\u00a0auritus<\/em>) but they are a poor field mark because\u00a0they’re\u00a0present for only a short time.\u00a0 They are produced in late winter by a partial molt on the head and are lost by June before the breeding season is over.\u00a0 The waxing and waning of the crests is the only seasonal change in this species.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"double-crested<\/a><\/p>\n

1\/1600 f\/5.6, ISO 640, Canon 7D, 500 f\/4 II, 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I photographed this cormorant three days ago at Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.\u00a0 I enjoy the characteristic turquoise eyes and the golden reflections on the water, though the floating stick behind the bird may not be ideal for some.<\/p>\n

At this\u00a0time of year\u00a0the crests\u00a0are fully developed but still\u00a0often difficult to see because they are usually (though not always) the same color as the head and neck feathers and because they are typically wet and slicked back against the rest of the plumage.\u00a0 Here the crests can be seen, but not well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"double-crested<\/a><\/p>\n

A less flattering head angle gives us a better look at the crests.\u00a0 Interestingly, the crests of western\u00a0cormorants are about twice as long a those of eastern birds (78mm vs 38mm).<\/p>\n

These birds have been harassed, persecuted and killed for centuries because of their fish-eating habits and their perception as competition by commercial and recreational fishermen and by fish farmers (catfish in particular).\u00a0 This resulted in a widespread decline in the species during the 19th century but thankfully have made a comeback since they were added to the\u00a0Migratory Bird Convention in 1972.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This antagonism toward cormorants is largely misdirected because in natural environments fish species of interest to fishermen rarely make up a significant\u00a0portion of the diet of these birds.<\/p>\n

At one of my “bird haunts” cormorants often fly low overhead\u00a0as they carry\u00a0nesting material toward their nest site much further away.\u00a0 One of my goals for this season is to get some decent flight shots of them as they do so.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Double-crested Cormorant is a common species throughout most of the continental U.S. but its namesake “double crest” is seldom seen well.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,1905],"tags":[49,1901,144,1904,1903,1902],"class_list":["post-22559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-double-crested-cormorants","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-double-crested-cormorant","tag-fishing","tag-migratory-bird-convention","tag-nuptial-crest","tag-phalacrocorax-auritus"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/double-crested-cormorant-5273-ron-dudley1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-5RR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}