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Saturday, January 12, 2013

Hanging Out to Dry

If you spend much time in an area with Double-crested Cormorants you will soon notice that they spend a lot of time posed like the one above. The reason for this odd stance is that unlike many other water birds such as ducks, their feathers do not repel water. This is also the reason that they swim so low in the water, often with only the upper part of their backs visible. There's a good reason for this - they are divers and buoyant feathers mean much more work to stay submerged when chasing fish. However, this also means that after swimming around underwater for some time they must spread their wings to let them dry. Being heavy makes diving easier but makes flying much harder.

3 comments:

William Kendall said...

Good capture! It's kind of a study in contrasts...

JoJo said...

There are tons of cormorants here now; I'd never seen them before. They hang out on the rocks at the Canal airing out their wings.

Fern Long said...

Thanks for another interesting and informative post; I've always wondered about this.