![\"double-crested-cormorant-8338-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/double-crested-cormorant-8338-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThis juvenile cormorant immediately caught my eye as being different from the others it was with.<\/p>\n
Largely because of my daughter Shannon’s recent visit it’s been almost a week since I’ve been out shooting so after they left for home yesterday I made a quick trip to a local pond. On my last photo excursion my Canon 7D Mark II did something a little quirky with exposure for a few minutes and I wanted to check it out. While there I spotted a group of\u00a0a half-dozen\u00a0young cormorants that were too far away for quality photos but I fired off a few shots\u00a0just to see if my exposure settings were working as they should (they were).<\/p>\n
One of those cormorants immediately got my attention.<\/p>\n
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1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Most of the juvenile Double-crested Cormorants looked exactly like I expected them\u00a0to, including the yellow skin on the face and throat (gular region).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n But this bird, with its almost red gular region, stood out like a sore thumb. To the\u00a0naked eye and through my viewfinder the color difference was even more dramatic than it appears here. Based on other physical traits I’m pretty sure\u00a0this bird is a Double-crested Cormorant and not some other cormorant species not normally found in my area (northern Utah).<\/p>\n I might have just passed this off as normal color variation that occasionally occurs in populations of any species except for one thing – notice the eye of this bird. It looks really weird.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A huge crop gives us a somewhat better look at the eye. I took 14 photos of this bird and both<\/em> eyes looked like this in all of them. I suppose it’s possible that the bird was simply sleeping with\u00a0both eyes closed (I don’t know the normal color of their eyelids) but the coincidence with the eyes in combination with the unusual color of the gular region seemed too much to ignore and it piqued my curiosity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n 1\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon 7D, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n To be truthful the eyes of that cormorant immediately reminded me of the right eye of this Northern Harrier I photographed a few years ago at Farmington Bay. Only the right eye of this bird was involved so it could still fly and hunt but to this day I don’t know the cause of the anomaly.<\/p>\n Anyway, stuff like this gets my attention and arouses my curiosity so I just thought\u00a0I’d throw it out there and see if any of my readers have any thoughts about what’s going on with the cormorant (or the harrier for that matter).<\/p>\n It makes me wonder if the unusual color of the gular region and the\u00a0(apparently) unusual eyes may be somehow linked…?<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This juvenile cormorant immediately caught my eye as being different from the others it was with.<\/p>\n![\"double-crested-cormorant\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/double-crested-cormorant.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"double-crested-cormorant-8329b-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/double-crested-cormorant-8329b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"northern-harrier-0636-ron-dudley\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/northern-harrier-0636-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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