Great Cormorant

How to recognise it

• Glossy black, fairly long-necked, breeding birds with white throat patch, whitish-grey nape, white thigh patch
• Long grey bill with a hooked tip and yellow, sometimes red, bare skin at the base
• Adults have deep sea-green eyes, young birds are brownish black with pale underparts

Call and song

The Great Cormorant is silent except at its breeding colonies. There it gives deep, harsh, croaking guttural calls, the most frequent sounding roughly like "chrochrochro".

Where and when

The Great Cormorant is a partial migrant breeding in Sweden. Mellanskarv breeds along the west, south and east coasts, up the Norrland coast, and at inland lakes and wetlands. Many migrate to the Mediterranean, but more and more winter in southern Sweden. Atlantstorskarv mainly winters on the west coast and in the Baltic, from autumn to March or April. It is reported all year from all 21 counties.

Food and behaviour

It often flies long distances in larger flocks to find food and can also feed in flocks. It takes prey on the bottom, usually in shallow water, diving to at most ten to twelve metres. In Sweden it mainly eats eelpout, perch, roach and shorthorn sculpin. It breeds in colonies of usually 10 to 500 pairs, with nests of seaweed and sticks on steep rock ledges or in trees.