Order: Suliformes

Family: Phalacrocoracidae

 

Size:  up to 50 cm in length

Weight: up ot 525 g

 

Key Features: It lacks a peaked head and has a shorter beak. The entire body is black in the breeding season but the plumage is brownish, and the throat has a small whitish patch in the non-breeding season. The sexes are indistinguishable in the field, but males tend to be larger.

 

Voice:  Little cormorants are vocal near their nest and roosts where they produce low roaring sounds. They also produce grunts and groans, a low pitched ah-ah-ah and kok-kok-kokcalls.

 

Breeding: The breeding season is between July to September in Pakistan and northern India and November to February in southern India. In Sri Lanka it is December to May. A study in Bangladesh found them to breed from May to October. Males display at the nest site by fluttering their wings while holding their head back and bill raised. They then lower the bill, and after pairing the male also provides food to the female in courtship feeding.  Both parents take part in building the nest, which is a platform of sticks placed on trees and sometimes even on coconut palms. They may nest beside Indian pond herons and little egrets in colonies. The whitish eggs turn muddy with age and incubation begins when the first egg is laid. This leads to asynchronous hatching and the chicks in a nest can vary considerably in age. The clutch size can vary from two to six eggs laid at intervals of about two days. The eggs hatch after 15 to 21 days. The downy chicks have a bare red head. The young birds are able to leave the nest after about a month.

 

Diet: feeds on small sized fish.

 

Habitat: It inhabits wetlands, ranging from small village ponds to large lakes, and sometimes tidal estuaries.

 

Habits: Tend to forage mainly in small loose groups and are often seen foraging alone. They swim underwater to capture their prey, mainly fish. A study in northern India found that the little cormorant fished in water which was less than a metre deep and captured fishes of about 2–8 centimetres (0.79–3.15 in) length. They propel themselves underwater using their webbed feet. Captured fishes are often brought up to the surface to swallow them and during this time other birds including other little cormorants, painted storks, gulls and egrets may attempt to steal them. Like all other cormorants, they will emerge from water and will hold out their wings and stay immobile for a while. The behaviour has been suggested to be for wing-drying, but this interpretation is debated.

 

Conservation Status: Least Concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

 

 

 

 

 

References:

Ripley, S Dillon (1962). "Unusual plumage of the Little Cormorant, [Phalacrocorax niger(Vieillot)]". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 59 (1): 285–286.

 

Blanford, WT (1898). The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma. Birds. Volume 4.. London: Taylor and Francis. pp. 342–343.

 

Ali, S. & Ripley, S.D. (1978). Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan 1 (2 ed.). New Delhi: Oxford University Press. pp. 41–43.

 

Naher, H and Sarker, NJ (2005). "Activities of the little cormorant, Phalacrocorax niger(Vieillot) in relation to sunlight in captivity". Ecoprint 12: 65–69.

 

BirdLife International (2014) Species factsheet:Microcarbo niger. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on July 02nd, 2014.

 

Photo Courtesy

JJ Harrison, Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons