While on a visit to CanalWay Center I saw this cool bird. The gangly Double-crested Cormorant is a prehistoric-looking, matte-black diving bird with yellow-orange facial skin. It is a large waterbird with a small head on long, kinked neck. This bird has a thin, strongly hooked bill. During breeding season, adults develop a small double crest of stringy black or white feathers.
Double-crested Cormorants float low on the surface of water and dive to catch small fish. After feeding, cormorants need to dry their wings. They do not have oil in their skin to protect their feathers from getting wet, like ducks and other water birds do. Cormorants find a perch and stretch their wings out until they are dry.
There is no other bird in Ohio that has undergone the tremendous population explosion of this bird. The use of unregulated pesticides like DDT caused a severe decline in their numbers from the 1950s through the 1970s. The comorant’s comeback is a result of the disappearance of these toxins from the environment.
Double-crested Cormorants often associate with other birds. Nests are built in trees alongside Great Blue Herons and other heron species. Cormorants will feed with other water birds, such as gulls, ducks and herons. These birds help each other with finding food and watching for predators. When threatened, a Double-crested Cormorant may vomit fish at a predator.