Cormorant

Cormorants and shags are members of the Phalacrocoracidae family of aquatic birds, which includes about 40 species. The number of genera has been debated, and several other classifications of the family were proposed. The great cormorant (P. carbo) and the common shag (P. aristotelis) have been the only two species of the family that can be found in the British Isles, although the terms "cormorant" and "shag" have been used to distinguish species in the family indiscriminately over time.

[Image will be uploaded soon]

Cormorants and shags are medium-to-large birds with wingspans of 45–100 centimetres (18–39 in) and body weights of 0.35–5 kg. Dark feathers are seen in the majority of species. Long, slender, and hooked is the bill. Webbing runs between all four toes on their feet. Most species are fish eaters, diving from the surface to obtain their meal. They are good divers, propelling themselves underwater with their feet and wings; a few cormorant species were discovered to dive to depths of 45 metres (150 ft). They have the shortest wings of any flying bird, owing to their necessity for efficient underwater movement. As a result, they have the greatest flight costs of any flying species.

Cormorants build their nests in colonies along the water's edge, on trees, islets, and cliffs. They are coastal birds, not oceanic birds, and a few have established colonies in inland waterways. Cormorants are said to have descended from a freshwater birds. Except for the islands of the central Pacific, they can be found all across the planet.

Description

Cormorants and shags are seabirds that are medium to huge in size. The pygmy cormorant (Phalacrocorax pygmaeus) is the smallest, measuring 45 cm (18 in) and weighing 340 g (12 oz), while the flightless cormorant (Phalacrocorax harrisi) is the largest, measuring 100 cm (39 in) and weighing 5 kg (11 lb). The spectacled cormorant (Phalacrocorax perspicillatus), which is now extinct, was larger, weighing an average of 6.3 kg (14 lb).

[Image will be uploaded soon]

Almost all Northern Hemisphere species have mostly dark plumage, while some Southern Hemisphere species possess black and white plumage, and some (such as New Zealand's spotted shag) have bright colours. Numerous species feature coloured skin on their faces, which can be vivid blue, red, orange, or yellow, and which often become more vibrant during the breeding season. The bill is long, slender, and hooked at the end. Their feet, like those of their cousins, feature webbing among all four toes.

Habitat- Cormorants are coastal rather than marine birds, and a few have colonised inland areas – fact, based on the habitat of the most ancient branch, the original ancestor of cormorants appears to have been a fresh-water bird. Except for the islands of the central Pacific, these can be found all across the planet.

Behaviour- They consume fish, small eels, and even water snakes, and they're all fish eaters. They dive from the surface, though many species do it with a half-jump, probably to provide a more streamlined entrance into the water. They use their feet to propel themselves underwater, while others use their wings as well. Utilizing depth gauges, certain cormorant species were discovered diving to depths of up to 45 metres (150 ft). 

Cormorants come ashore after fishing and are often seen flapping their wings in the sun. Preen gland secretions are found in all cormorants and are ostensibly used to make the feathers waterproof. Cormorants possess impervious feathers, according to a few sources, but water-permeable feathers, according to others. Others claim that the outer plumage absorbs water yet prevents it from penetrating the air layer adjacent to the skin. Even flightless cormorants have wing drying movement, although Antarctic shags and red-legged cormorants do not. The spread-wing stance may also promote thermoregulation or digestion, balance the bird, or confirm the presence of fish, among other things. A thorough examination of the great cormorant's plumage reveals that it is, without a doubt, to dry the feathers.

Cormorants build their nests on trees, rocky islets, or cliffs in colonies. The eggs are a bluish-chalky colour. Each year, there is typically only one brood. Parents regurgitate food to feed their young, who have deep, ungainly beaks that resemble those of pelicans (to which they are related) more than the adults.

Taxonomy

Cormorant birds are a group of birds that are traditionally classified as Pelecaniformes or extended Ciconiiformes in the Sibley–Ahlquist taxonomy. This latter group is undoubtedly not natural, and even after the tropicbirds were identified as different, the remaining Pelecaniformes do not appear to be monophyletic. Other than being part of an "upper waterfowl" clade that is close but not similar to Sibley and Ahlquist's "pan-Ciconiiformes," their relationships and delimitation seem to be mostly unknown. Regardless, most evidence suggests that cormorants and shags are more closely related to darters and Sulidae, and possibly pelicans or even penguins, than to many other extant birds.

In recent years, three preferred cormorant treatments have emerged: leaving all extant cormorants in a single genus, Phalacrocorax, or splitting out some species, like the imperial shag complex and maybe the flightless cormorant. However, the genus could be dismantled entirely, with the great, white-breasted, and Japanese cormorants remaining in the most extreme situation.

For three reasons, the single-genus approach is used here in the absence of a complete assessment of Recent and ancient cormorants. To begin with, it is advisable to assign genera on the basis of a weak hypothesis. Second, it makes it much easier to manage with the fossil forms, whose treatment was as contentious as the management of living cormorants and shags. Third, the IUCN uses this method to make data on status and preservation simpler to integrate. The imperial shag complex has been held unsplit in keeping with the treatment there, while the king shag complex has been split.

List of Genera-

According to the IOC, the family consists of three genera:

• Microcarbo (5 species)

• Phalacrocorax (22 species, comprising single extinct in the 19th century)

• Leucocarbo (15 species)

The group is now divided into seven genera, according to an alternate treatment presented in 2014 and endorsed by the IUCN Red List and BirdLife International:

• Microcarbo 

• Poikilocarbo 

• Urile 

• Phalacrocorax 

• Gulosus 

• Nannopterum 

• Leucocarbo 

According to some authorities, including the Clements Checklist, there are only two genera: Microcarbo, which has five species, and Phalacrocorax, which would have the rest.

Evolution and Fossil Record

Cormorants have a very old body pattern, with similar birds dating back to the dinosaur era. In reality, Gansus yumenensis, the first known modern bird, has precisely the very same anatomy. The specifics of the cormorant's evolution are essentially unknown. Even biogeography, which uses a species' range and relationships to determine where it originated from and is normally quite instructive, does not provide particularly specific information for this likely old and extensive group.

The cormorants and shags' closest living cousins were the families of the suborder Sulae, such as gannets, darters, and boobies, that have a largely Gondwanan distribution. As a result, the contemporary Sulae variety is thought to have developed in the southern hemisphere. While the Leucocarbonines have been almost definitely from the southern Pacific, feasibly also the Antarctic, that was not yet ice-covered just at moment cormorants evolved, all that could be said about the Phalacrocoracines is that they are most diversified in the areas surrounding the Indian Ocean, but they have been found throughout the world.

Cormorant Fishing

Cormorants' fishing abilities have been employed by humans in a variety of locations across the world. Cormorant fishing may have been practised in Ancient Egypt, Korea, Peru, and India, however, the biggest tradition has maintained in China and Japan, where it would have attained commercial-scale levels in some locations, according to archaeological data. Cormorant fishing is known as ukai in Japan. Traditional ukai could be found on the Nagara River in Gifu, Gifu Prefecture, wherein cormorant fishing has been practised continuously for 1300 years, or in Inuyama, Aichi.

Cormorants are well-known in Guilin, Guangxi, for fishing in the shallow Li River. The Japanese cormorant (P. capillatus) is utilised in Gifu, and Chinese fishermen frequently use large cormorants (P. carbo). A similar approach was also utilised in Europe on Doiran Lake in the Macedonian region.

A snare is attached to the bottom of the bird's throat in a popular approach, allowing the bird to just ingest small fish. The fish gets lodged in the bird's throat when it grabs and attempts to swallow a huge fish. The fisherman assists the bird in removing the fish from its throat as it arrives at the fisherman's raft.

In Folklore, Literature, and Art-

Cormorants are often shown in heraldry and mediaeval embellishment in their "wing-drying" stance, which was thought to mirror the Christian cross and symbolizes nobility and sacrifice. The cormorant, according to John Milton's Paradise Lost, represents greed: Satan, sitting atop the Tree of Life, watched on Adam and Eve in his first entry into Eden, assumed the guise of a cormorant. They are regarded as a positive sign in several Scandinavian countries; in Norwegian folklore, ghosts of those lost at sea disguised as cormorants greet their dear ones. Cormorants appear in the coats of arms of the Norwegian municipalities of Loppa, Rost, and Skjervoy, for reference. Liverpool's iconic liver bird is said to be a hybrid between an eagle and a cormorant.

Great Cormorant

The black shag (Phalacrocorax carbo), commonly called the black cormorant in Australia, the huge black cormorant in the Northern Hemisphere, and the large cormorant in India, is a worldwide species of the cormorant family of seabirds. It breeds in most of Australia, the Old World, and North America's Atlantic coast.

Breeding- The great cormorant typically builds colonies nearby wetlands, rivers, and protected inshore seas to raise their young. Year after year, couples would reproduce at the same location. It constructs its stick nest in trees, cliff ledges, as well as on the ground on predator-free rocky islands. 

This cormorant produces three to five eggs with an average size of 63 by 41 millimetres (2.5 by 1.6 in). The eggs are a pale blue or green colour, with a white chalky film surrounding them occasionally. Incubation lasts roughly 28 to 31 days for such eggs.

Feeding- The great cormorant eats fish that it catches by diving. Wrasses are the primary food of this bird, however, it also eats sand smelt, flathead, and common soles. The mean weight of fish captured by large cormorants increased as air and water temperatures dropped, from 30 g in the summer to 109 g in the warm winter to 157 g in the cold winter.

In the summer, cormorants eat whatever fish of acceptable size which they can catch, but in the winter, they prefer larger, generally torpedo-shaped fish. As a result, the winter increase in foraging efficiency documented by multiple researchers for cormorants is attributable to collecting larger fish rather than capturing more fish.

Fun Facts about Cormorants

• To defend their young, cormorants build nests on rocky crags. They may use ancient blue heron nests above in the trees.

• Cormorants build their nests in colonies and poop on bushes, trees, and rocks. Cormorant dung may stain rocks and even damage trees since there are so many of them nesting in one spot.

• Mothers and fathers of cormorants alternate sitting on their eggs. When the babies are born, they are fed half-eaten fish by their parents.

• Pollution or oil in the water might cause harm to cormorants.