Black-faced Cormorant
Phalacrocorax fuscescens(1 photos)
Black-faced Cormorant
60-70 cm; span c. 1 m. White-breasted sea cormorant with black flank mark: black of crown reaches green eye; bill dark grey; throat pouch and facial skin black. Breeding Plumage: hindneck finely streaked white. Immature: browner; face buff; foreneck smutty. Singles to occasional large companies on offshore rocky islands, buoys, isolated jetties, breakwaters. On wing, has pot-bellied look, small head carried level with body; flight straight and swift with rapid shallow wingbeats, close to water.
- Other name
- Black-faced Shag; White-breasted Cormorant.
- Similar Species
- Pied Cormorant, imm.: bill paler than imm. Black-faced; facial skin yellowish; white plumage smutty. Little Pied Cormorant, imm.: much smaller; stubby bill yellow on sides.
- Voice
- mostly silent away from nest.
- Habitat
- coastal waters: islands, larger bays, deep inlets; ashore mostly on isolated rock stacks, remote rocky headlands; seldom on beaches.
- Breeding
- Sept.-Feb.
- Nest
- scanty to substantial, of dry seaweed, driftwood, grass, pigface; in colony on rock shelf or rock face of island or stack. Largest colonies in SA.
- Eggs
- 2; pale green, chalky.
- Range & Status
- coasts of s. Aust. from far e. Vic. to c. C. Leeuwin (WA). Common Bass Strait, coasts of Tas., and Vic., w. from Wilsons Prom. through SA, where abundant in gulfs. Possible break in Gt Aust. Bight. Resident Recherche Arch., and coastally w. from Israelite Bay to Hopetoun (WA). Casual Green Cape and Montague I. (NSW). Sedentary.
