Cormorants

[Laurence Griffiths]

On Friday the members of my local camera club met up for our regular "Coffee & Camera" session. Last Friday we met up at Wellington Point, east of Brisbane and strolled across to King Island via the low tide causeway-like sandbar from the mainland. I took a series of scenic and bird shots, but the cormorant shots had me wondering about their behaviour.......

The Channel:

Note how each channel marker has a cormorant appearing to be doing "guard duty".

The Channel. by Laurence Griffiths, on Flickr​

They went that way:

They went that way. by Laurence Griffiths, on Flickr​

Pied Cormorant:

Pied Cormorant by Laurence Griffiths, on Flickr


Pied Cormorant by Laurence Griffiths, on Flickr​

Changing the Guard:

One cormorant leaves, while another takes over.

Changing the Guard by Laurence Griffiths, on Flickr
​

The Flickr album which contains most of Friday's "Coffee & Camera" shots is here: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBtBKT

 

[Rob MacKillop]

I love watching cormorants, but have recently moved house away from where we watched them. Nice to see these images.

 

[Gary R. Smith]

I don't think we have the "pied" variety here, just the plain black ones. Nice set of images!

 

[Gianluca Drago]

Nice series, @Laurence Griffiths!

 

[Brian Moore]

We get a lot of cormorants round these parts. I guess we're geographically close enough to @Gary R. Smith's "hood' to share avian species. Ours are the black ones also. When perched they like to spread their wings. Looks like your pied ones do as well. Nice shots, Laurence.

 

[Gary R. Smith]

Here's one of mine...
OM-1, 1/800sec. f/6.3 ISO 640 w/PL 100-400 @ 400mm

 

[Laurence Griffiths]

Here's one of mine...View attachment 19736
OM-1, 1/800sec. f/6.3 ISO 640 w/PL 100-400 @ 400mm

Beautiful! How do you like those blue eyes?

 

[Gary R. Smith]

Larry - the bird was so far away I didn't see the blue eyes until I got the image home and onto my computer. My un-aided eyesight isn't what it used to be. I will admit, those are some starkly blue eyes!

 

[Laurence Griffiths]

Larry - the bird was so far away I didn't see the blue eyes until I got the image home and onto my computer. My un-aided eyesight isn't what it used to be. I will admit, those are some starkly blue eyes!

I was also amazed the first time I saw a photo which I had taken of a Little Black Cormorant. But I was probably a lot closer to the bird than you were. It was near the bank of a dam in the Oxley Creek Common. I haven't yet seen (or should that be noticed?) another bird with eyes like that.

Little Black Cormorant by Laurence Griffiths, on Flickr​