Little Cormorant

Description:

"Cormorants are almost exclusively fish-eaters;" they drive their prey towards inshore waters by beating the water with their wings and gradually close in on the fish. Additionally, Cormorants are "foot-propelled pursuit drivers...well adapted to diving in shallow waters;" As such,they typically take a series of dives from the water’s surface interspersed with breathing breaks. The Little Cormorant forages in inshore waters, "following a specific foraging pattern, consisting of perching near the inshore water prior to the beginning of the dive...[and then] dropping into the water;" after the first dive, the bird pauses for a short time to recover and then continues to alternate diving and resting for a period of time; the pauses and dive lengths vary with different environmental conditions such as water depth and tide level. The foraging behavior and diving pattern of the Little Cormorant also varies significantly due to other environmental characteristics of the habitat, such as type of fish present or type of body of water.