Bird ID needed!

Hey All!

I was out in some nearby wetlands today and ran across a bird I had not before encountered and took a bunch of shots of it. I figured I'd post here to get an ID!

I was shooting with my 1DM3 and the 100-400 with a 1.4x TC attached -- not the best combo for sharpness so I had it stopped down from f/8 "wide open" to f/11 -- this has gotten pretty typical for me!

I had set the ISO to 800 earlier and when I saw this bird I was actually heading back to my car and had to treck a bit up against a fence-structure it was a ways behind of and ended up with a shutter speed of only 1/80 or even 1/60 before I set things back to ISO 1600. Shot with a monopod but still ditched a lot of shots!

The shots look badly underexposed from here because the only part with light/color is the beak and I'm away from my desktop workstation, oh well!

Well, here's the first view I got that I could get in-frame (with the fence, that is):

HTTP response: 403 | MIME changed to 'text/html'

HTTP response: 403 | MIME changed to 'text/html'

Looks like a cormorant.

I was wondering but couldn't fine my bird book and didn't have enough time to search it out -- I'll check!

Here's a shot from closer up showing blue eyes!

HTTP response: 403 | MIME changed to 'text/html'

Yeah, it looks like a double-crested cormorant -- thanks for the tip!

Is it a dam loon??

That is most certainly a Cormorant; I *believe* it's the Double Crested Cormorant, to be specific. Nice captures, Tony! Really got the eye and the iridescence of the feathers. It fascinates me how much they look like scales.

tonylong wrote in post #11889649
Yeah, it looks like a double-crested cormorant -- thanks for the tip!

That's what it is and they're all over the place. I shot some while I was in San Diego and last Friday found quite a few on the James River near Richmond VA.

tonylong wrote in post #11889649
Yeah, it looks like a double-crested cormorant -- thanks for the tip!

Yep, that's it, Tony.

Sometimes called "shags" in local lingo. Or as my dad, the commercial fisherman, used to say, "Salmon Eatin' S.O.B. (without the abbreviations).

Thanks for chiming in, gang! I got about 50 shots of it that I haven't thrown away out of about 100, which wasn't so bad considering the conditions and all. And I haven't even barley touched the wood ducks and mallards...

Snydremark wrote in post #11889659
That is most certainly a Cormorant; I *believe* it's the Double Crested Cormorant, to be specific. Nice captures, Tony! Really got the eye and the iridescence of the feathers. It fascinates me how much they look like scales.

Yeah, I was pretty impressed how black feathers can actually show some "stuff"!

I'm back! I finally was able to process some more of the cormorant pics so I'll share 'em!

Note that the combination of the low light, the TC/lens combo (the 100-400 is not the sharpest with a TC) and the fact that I ended up on uneven terrain, leaning on the fence with my monopod struggling for footage led to some less-than-tack-sharp shots, but oh well...

Here's a close crop of one of the above, making for a not-so-bad portrait:

HTTP response: 403 | MIME changed to 'text/html'

HTTP response: 403 | MIME changed to 'text/html'

HTTP response: 403 | MIME changed to 'text/html'

HTTP response: 403 | MIME changed to 'text/html'

HTTP response: 403 | MIME changed to 'text/html'

HTTP response: 403 | MIME changed to 'text/html'

It's been a while since I've been to the West Coast, but believe that it's a Double Crested as it has a distinct orange cast to the bill. Brandt's is distinctly yellow. Nice images!

Dano_nav wrote in post #11951477
It's been a while since I've been to the West Coast, but believe that it's a Double Crested as it has a distinct orange cast to the bill. Brandt's is distinctly yellow. Nice images!

Thanks! Yeah, that's what we decided!