( 130 ) 

 CORMORANTS IN NORFOLK. 



BY 



E. L. TURNER, Hon. Mem. B.O.U. 



The nesting of a pair of Cormorants {Phalocrocorax c. 

 carbo) in a disused Heron's nest in Norfolk has already 

 been reported by Mr. J. H. Gurney [antea, p. 52), and 

 shortly after the announcement I was asked to visit 

 the nesting-site in order to procure photographs if 

 possible. The results are interesting as a scientific 

 record ; pictorially they fail, for the technical difficulties 

 of the situation were insurmountable. 



The nest selected by the Cormorants was placed at the 

 top of a large alder on a tiny island in a lake. It was 

 about forty feet up, and difficult of access owing to the 

 unsound condition of the tree. A reference to Figure 1 

 will give the reader a better idea of its whereabouts 

 than can any written words. It was in the middle of 

 the branches on the extreme right-hand top corner 

 of the waUed island, not in the fork of the tree where 

 the sky shows through, but just over tliis. In Figure 2 

 the old bird is seen perched above the nest, while in 

 Figure 3 one adult is flying away, and the other may be 

 discerned just beneath the moving bird ; the nest with 

 one youngster sitting upright is to be seen to the left. 

 Figure 3 was taken after a large branch had been removed 

 in order to let in some light. Two young birds were 

 first visible on July 1st, but I think they must have 

 been hatched some days earlier. By July 8th the 

 brood was found to consist of four. The first two birds 

 were fledged on July 28th, the third on August 1st, 

 while the fourth remained in the nest till August 6th. 



Cormorants do not breed on the east coast south of 

 Flamborough Head. They have not been known to 

 nest in Norfolk for upwards of two hundred years. 

 WiUiam Turner wrote in 1544 : "I have seen Mergi 

 nesting on sea-chffs about the mouth of the Tyne river, 



