cormorant subspecies?

[aeshna5]

Originally Posted by ChrisJB

It looks like classic 'courtship' plumage to me.

Regards, Chris

It looks pretty "normal" to me; older individuals often show more white feathering.

[squishy]

this is strange! if this is normal, why have i never seen a cormorant like this before

[Jason Green]

Originally Posted by squishy

jason: i'm a little confused. if you're right, why does every single bird book in my house disagree (i'm not saying you're wrong, but i cant find anything like that in my personal library )

Sounds like I need to get writing, put the world right on a few things... I can see it now, The Myths of British Cormorants by Jason Green. Nope, second thoughts I can't

All the books disagree? Just call them psycophants then

[squishy]

they dont disagree actually, just seems very odd that all the books i looked at (and i looked at several in the mini ornithology library at the marsh as well) have no mention of it

[Gill Catton]

I think its just one of those things - you have to be conciously looking at the right time of year, its probably something I only noticed for the first time about 5 years ago - now I see it regularly - probably because I am involved in winter birds survey every year now and its seems to be most evident in late winter- spring.

I saw several birds like it in Chichester last week for example.

As for the whole sub-species thing. I think its too easy to get caught up in separating sub-species myself when it doesn't seem to achieve all that much.

To me a cormorant is a cormorant

[Tormentil]

Originally Posted by aeshna5

It looks pretty "normal" to me; older individuals often show more white feathering.

A bit like us 'umans.

[squishy]

i feel abit silly now

[Gill Catton]

Originally Posted by squishy

i feel abit silly now

no don't feel silly at all.

It is the only way to learn is to ask stuff and one day you may well ask a question that someone hasn't thought about properly before or no one has noticed and maybe some knowledge new to everyone may be the result!

One of my such questions is why are male and female tree sparrows the same colour but house sparrows have completely different plumages being that both species nest in cavities?

In fact what's worse is if you don't ask questions because then you don't learn from other or end up learning something that is actually wrong!

[wyattnorm]

That's cleared that up! Watching 3 or 4 Cormorants on my patch with these distinct markings I thought they were something different but no, just breeding plumage. Wonder why the others were normally marked.

[diggleken]

Originally Posted by wyattnorm

That's cleared that up! Watching 3 or 4 Cormorants on my patch with these distinct markings I thought they were something different but no, just breeding plumage. Wonder why the others were normally marked.

Plumage differences as in many other birds relate to maturity and time of year and breeding status, eg juveniles, 1st year birds, non-breeding adults /immatures and so on, so there will be a mix together.
Oh, welcome to WAB!
Cheers
Ken