The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Rain, sun, wind...insects, birds, flowers...meteorites, rocks...seasonal changes...all are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us.
April 7, 2015
Salish Sea, PNW
Pelagic Cormorants are never so gleaming as they are in spring. With the start of the breeding season their freshly donned plumage is bright and unworn, patterned and accented to attract the perfect mate. Considering that these are essentially black birds, and that males and females are alike, their appearance is spectacular. To me anyway - I've been watching these birds at the Anacortes ferry dock for the last few years, and this spring display is a special treat to catch, even for just a few minutes at a time when I am en route home from the mainland.
Their iridescence is at maximum. How many colors do you see in those black feathers?
More about these glistening cormorants below....
(All photos by me. In Lightbox...click to enlarge)
Ordinarily cormorants nest on remote outer rocky islands where they construct a shallow bowl of seaweed cemented with excrement directly on the ground. They are safe from most predators out there. One tiny island breeding colony not far from our home in the Salish Sea can be approached by boat. I photo'd this group of Pelagic cormorants on January 31 this year, and even though the weather is more wintry, you can see the birds are not as brightly iridescent, nor do they have the white rear patches and red faces of breeding birds yet:
A few days ago, that island - a designated wildlife reserve - was filling up with cormorants, gulls and geese. The cormorants use ledges on the steep sides for nesting while the gulls and geese use the flatter top:
But the ferry dock cormorants have chosen to use the ledges on the anchored dolphins, even though there is constant engine noise and traffic and people only inches away. The ledges must be very attractive in spite of all that!
They are assembling there now. Their numbers are still small so far. On this day, they were establishing pair bonds, staking out ledges and grooming grooming grooming that gleaming plumage.
I noticed something new this year. Washington State Ferries would prefer that the cormorants didn't nest right here, and to be fair, when fully occupied the structures get VERY stinky in the summer sun and it is like bedlam, the comings and goings and calling of hundreds of birds in close quarters, quite a spectacle for ferry workers all day long. So over the years WSF has tried a variety of strategies to discourage the cormorants from nesting. By last year they had installed many closely spaced cables over the ledges, as in this first photo (from May, 2014). Compare it to this year (second photo). The cables have all been removed, as best I could see from my ferry. I suspect the ferry staff found it a problem cleaning off the ledges on the off-season. (I've never been able to get a ferry worker to talk freely about the cormorants; they put me off or change the subject.)
Instead of the cables, this year there are short white poles affixed here and there, and some appear to have colorful fluttery material attached. So far, the birds are completely ignoring them.
Whatever sparkly colors have been added to the dock, they pale in comparison to the spectacularly colorful iridescence of the birds. Gleaming in the spring sunshine. If I'm not mistaken there's also a gleam of avian romance in those jade-colored eyes.
I'll be passing through intermittently over the breeding season and will keep you posted about developments...next observation in 2 weeks. (We are off for our annual dive trip tomorrow. My internet access will be iffy but I'll check in at the Daily Bucket when I can from my backyard there :))
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Time for you to report your nature observations from where you live. Interesting behaviors or bloomings in your backyard?
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