Pelagic Cormorant

Pelagic Cormorants are another wides-ranging bird of the North Pacific, found from the Bering Sea south to Baja California and south China. Despite their name, Pelagic Cormorants are found along inland areas, where they feed on fish and invertebrates on the sea floor. Cormorants are related to gannets, Anhingas and Frigatebirds. Recent studies, unlike earlier work, suggest that Pelicans are closer to herons and egrets than they are to cormorants, with whom they once shared the order Pelicaniformes (Hobson 2013). Many ornithologists now place the cormorants in a separate order, the Suliformes, apart from the pelicans. In any case, note this bird’s orange face. The key field-mark, white patches on its lower back, are not visible in this photo.