CORMORANTS : Family Pbalacrocoracidae [ 95 ] 



guished from the two smaller species by its bright yellow pouch and bill. 

 It nests on the offshore rocks and rocky headlands of the coast and 

 abundantly in eastern Oregon, where there are usually great colonies 

 (Plate 13, B) in the Klamath country and also in Lake, Harney, and Mal- 

 heur Counties. Bendire (1875, J ^77 '> i882.c), Merrill (1888), Finley (1907^ 

 1912., 191 5b), and Willett (1919), among others, have written of the huge 

 nesting colonies of the lake counties, and since Lewis and Clark (1814) 

 reported "cormorants" from the mouth of the Columbia in 1805, nearly 

 every bird writer has mentioned them. Townsend (1839) reported the 

 species from the Columbia River. His is the first definite record, although 

 Lewis and Clark undoubtedly saw this species among other cormorants, 

 as it is still a regular inhabitant of the Astoria district. Outside of the 

 breeding season, it is likely to be found on any of the larger bodies of 

 water, particularly in eastern Oregon and along the coast. It remains the 

 year around on open water, except where solid ice forms. 



On the coast the eggs are laid in nests composed of seaweed and various 

 other bits of vegetation arranged on the surface of the bare rock. On 

 Upper Klamath Lake there is a large colony that builds crude nests of 

 sticks in the low-growing willow trees bordering some of the channels 

 in the swampy section of the lake (Plate 13, B). This colony contains a 

 mixture of Farallon Cormorants, Black-crowned Night Herons, American 

 Egrets, and Blue Herons. At Malheur Lake, Willett (1919) reported them 

 nesting in clumps of broken-down tules. In the Drews Creek Reservoir, 

 Lake County, on a point where a few old giant yellow pines have been 

 killed by the raising of the water level of the lake, some dozeri nests of 

 a cormorant colony are saddled on the dead limbs of these huge old pines, 

 some of them at least 50 feet above the water. A cormorant colony is 

 usually a rather smelly place. The nests are filthy, and the trees that 

 support them are liberally white-washed with excrement. As if this were 

 not enough, bits of decaying fish or other food and dead birds, both old 

 and young, add to the stench. 



Nest building commences in April, and the three to five pale bluish- 

 white eggs, somewhat covered with a peculiar limy deposit and very 

 frequently nest-stained, are usually laid in April or early May. Egg dates 

 extend from April 6 to June 15. Nesting is somewhat irregular, and in 

 mid-June it is generally possible to find nests in all stages from those con- 

 taining newly laid eggs to those containing well-developed youngsters. 

 When first hatched, the young are repulsive looking, with wrinkled faces 

 and naked jet-black skin. They are blind and helpless but grow very 

 rapidly and by early June are well developed and some of them are ready 

 to fly. The parents make little effort to defend the young and either sit 

 off at some distance and watch an intruder or circle about over his head. 



Just prior to the breeding season, the Farallon Cormorants sometimes 

 develop white head plumes that are very ephemeral and generally lost by 



