A fishing bird

Taking my camera down to through the back yard I noticed a bird sitting bravely out on a branch over the water. I know this bird as a cormorant but Colin calls it a "shag" and it can often be seen with wings held out to dry after diving for food and getting its feathers all saturated.
I was wearing a dull coloured shirt and dark pants which was fortunate. Birds can be startled by strong light coloured clothing and I have found that if you wear something neutral and move and stop and move and stop, that the birds lose sight of you. I have successfully used this technique to get close to a flock of black cockatoos and it worked this time for the Little Black Cormorant. If you would like to see another picture I took of this bird from a different position click here. I would have liked to have been able to get a bit closer but the banks of the waterway are rather steep and I didn't fancy falling in!

There is another cormorant that looks very like this one and is called the Black Cormorant, it is slightly larger but it has a lighter base to its beak and pale yellow on its throat and it is found all over the world where as the Little Black Cormorant is only found in Australia and Indonesia.

AJ