Thank you for that interesting report Sandra. Unfortunate but understandable that you had to type ‘Pied, not Little Pied’ to clarify that your sighting was indeed the larger species. Three years
ago Birdlife Australia, following Birdlife International, had adopted ‘Great Pied Cormorant’ as the sensible and more useful English name. No criticism is intended here of the invaluable and overworked David McDonald who usually volunteers to update the COG
list. Birdlife Australia is also a little slow on the updating, giving ‘Pied Cormorant’ in its Birds-in-backyards site. I see that Cornell Lab and eBird are staying with ‘Pied Cormorant’ for the time being, perhaps guided by their regional advisers who
occasionally feel free to depart from Birdlife Australia in favour of some other (unknown) convention.
Meanwhile, the IOC list has gone with ‘Australian Pied Cormorant’. This might be intended to break the link with ‘Little Pied’ (suggested by ‘Pied’ or ‘Great Pied’), given that they put the two
species in different genera. This does not overcome the slight complication, for those of us in Australia with the kangaroos, that we have three ‘pied cormorants’. There is a similar problem with the Gull-billed Tern group.
From: Canberrabirds <>
On Behalf Of sandra henderson via Canberrabirds
Sent: Wednesday, 27 July 2022 4:48 AM
To: Canberra birds <>
Subject: [Canberrabirds] Pied Cormorants at Googong Dam
Yesterday I was at Googong Dam, wandering the western Foreshores track in preparation for an outing by a seniors' club birdwatching group I'm leading next week. I got great views of a Pied Cormorant , and poorer views of a group of four
others much further out on the water. Photos confirmed Pied, not Little Pied. Had not seen them there before, and am even more surprised to note that there are NO eBird records for them at Googong, or anywhere else in the Palerang LGA.
Despite the wind, it was actually a pleasant walk - trees higher up the slopes were being blown around but the track around the dam edge was very calm.
