Diving

I visited the local gulls this lunchtime and, although the sea is now free of ice, the harbour is still largely frozen. A cormorant was feeding close by, along the edge of the ice, and it was fascinating to watch it dive and follow it underwater in the very clear and relatively shallow water. My field guides always told me that one of the behavioural differences between Shags and Cormorants was that Shags jumped clear of the water before diving, whereas Cormorants were more 'lazy', with a shallower movement. In the sequence of photos below, you can see the legs clearing the water in the third photo, something that I thought was more akin to Shags. Maybe the sinensis subspecies of Cormorant (the slightly smaller version of the UK's nominate carbo) is a sort of 'in between' version..!

Photos: Cormorant dive sequence