Indian Cormorant – Phalacrocorax fuscicollis
Three species of Cormorants (the little cormorant, Indian cormorant and the great cormorant) are wide spread in India often with shared habitats. They are difficult to differentiate amongst themselves and are often mistaken for each other.
This population of cormorants appears to be an aggregation of primarily the Indian cormorant Phalacrocorax fuscicollis. The birds are characterized by an elongated oval shaped small head. The eggs are blue. The beak is long and narrow and curved into a hook. Sexes are similar. The breeding adult is glossy back with greenish blue eyes and a white tuft on ear coverts. The non breeding adult is browner with a yellowish gular pouch and white on throat. Juvenile and immature birds are brown and may have paler breast and lower belly.
An IUCN species of least concern, the Indian cormorant, as we see is gregarious. It is distributed across peninsular India and in the Northern parts of Sri Lanka and may extend North east to Assam and east wards into Thailand, Burma and Cambodia. The breeding season is from July to February. The nests are in dense tiered colonies with 3 to 5 bluish green eggs.
It is feeding time here. Both adults feed the chicks and juveniles through regurgitation. The parents need a lot of coaxing with fervent flapping of wings in order to allow this intrusive feeding. The head is fully thrust into the mouth of the parent from where regurgitated slurry is taken up. Sometimes the juveniles and sub adults may remove an entire fish from the adults neck pouch.
Young and adult cormorants may even regurgitate what they have earlier as a defense mechanism.
©Srimaa Communication
Acknowledgements-Dr. Yashpal Singh, Mrs. Neena Singh, Mr. Rajesh Bedi, Manoj Kumar Yadav