I too have never seen a (North American) Great Cormorant with this much white, but it makes sense that that's what is was. We call it "Great Cormorant", the British call is "Cormorant", but it's the same species, phalacrocorax carbo. One or two of the European races definitely do show this much white as immatures, even adults.
Bob Lewis Sleepy Hollow NY --- On Sat, 1/5/13, John Gluth <jgl...@optonline.net> wrote: > From: John Gluth <jgl...@optonline.net> > Subject: Re:[nysbirds-l] Unusual Cormorant at Rye Beach, Westchester County > To: "NYSBIRDS-L-for posts posts" <NYSBIRDS-L@cornell.edu> > Date: Saturday, January 5, 2013, 12:05 AM > I guess it's the nature of we > birder's to want to turn a poorly seen and/or seemingly out > of the ordinary bird into a rarity. But while John Haas' > self-described poor quality photos ARE distant, blurry, and > overly contrasty, they are not so bad as to rule out the > most probable identification— > Great Cormorant—which he himself thought the most likely > ID. The photos of immature Great Cormorants on this site: > http://tinyurl.com/a3676jx > show first-year birds with just as much white on the face, > neck and underparts as the bird in Rye. > -- > > NYSbirds-L List Info: -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
