Today (25/4/05) while at the South Beach in Wollongong a
large cormonant flew in from the east. Initial thoughts were
Pied Corm. as all I could see was a white neck, but as it
flew directly over me the entire lower half (breast down) of
the body was black, including the vent. The cormorant had
features identical to that of a Great Cormorant (yellow
facial skin and throat, size matched well), but had a clean
white front of the neck terminating at the breast. There was
a gradual transition (flecks and spots) where the white met
the black on the neck, not a sharp clean line dividing the 2
colours as seen on the Pied Corm. There were no signs of
white thigh patches as seen on Great Cormorants in breeding
plumage.
The cormorant was probably showing some sort of varied
plumage, but I have not found any australian literature
noting this variation. A seach for Great Cormorant on google
revealed pictures similar to what I saw today. The cormorant
in the link below is very similar to the bird at Wollongong
today, but this plumage is charactertic of the Great
Cormorant race lucidus (White-breasted Cormorant) ocurring
in Southern Africa
http://www.magikbirds.com/image.asp?
title_id=289&show_thumbnails=False
Has anyone else noted this plumage in Great Cormorants in
Australia?
Cheers,
Nigel
--------------------------------------------
Birding-Aus is now on the Web at
www.birding-aus.org
--------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message 'unsubscribe
birding-aus' (no quotes, no Subject line)
to
|
