
U.S. Senate Votes to Protect Birds, Improve Parks, and Create Jobs
Bipartisan legislation to provide permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund advances out of the U.S. Senate.
Breeding adult. Photo: Steve Torna/Audubon Photography Awards
Phalacrocorax penicillatus
Conservation status | Local populations fluctuate, but overall numbers probably stable. |
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Family | Cormorants |
Habitat | Ocean, coast. Almost always on salt water, entering brackish water at mouths of estuaries. May forage fairly close to shore or well out at sea. Nests on islands and locally on mainland, mostly on slopes rather than ledges of vertical cliffs. |
See family introduction. Reportedly able to dive deep, perhaps more than 150' below surface. Forages singly or in groups, sometimes in association with sea lions. May forage at all levels from near surface to near bottom, perhaps mostly the latter.
4, sometimes 3-6. Whitish to pale blue, becoming nest-stained. Incubation is by both sexes, incubation period unknown. Young: Both parents feed young, by regurgitation. Age at first flight unknown.
Both parents feed young, by regurgitation. Age at first flight unknown.
mostly fish. Eats a wide variety of fish, including herring, rockfish; also some shrimp, crabs.
Breeds in colonies. Male chooses nest site and displays there to ward off rivals and attract mate. Displays include drawing head back with blue throat pouch extended and bill pointed upward, spreading tail, and fluttering wings; also thrusting head forward and downward in rapid repeated strokes. Nest: Site is on ground, either level or steeply sloped. Nest is mound of seaweed, eelgrass, algae, cemented by droppings. Most nest material is obtained underwater; male does most of gathering, female does most of building. Pair may use same nest every year, adding to it annually.
Audubon’s scientists have used 140 million bird observations and sophisticated climate models to project how climate change will affect this bird’s range in the future.
Zoom in to see how this species’s current range will shift, expand, and contract under increased global temperatures.
Choose a temperature scenario below to see which threats will affect this species as warming increases. The same climate change-driven threats that put birds at risk will affect other wildlife and people, too.
Bipartisan legislation to provide permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund advances out of the U.S. Senate.
Fully funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund will help every county across the country.
Fifty-five years after the infamous prison closed, “The Rock” now hosts thousands of nesting gulls, cormorants, guillemots, and more.
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