Taken on the Coast of Washington Photo bv the Author 



YOUNG CORMORANTS 



THE BIRDS ARE WHITE-CRESTS (P. a. cincinnatus) , NOT APPRECIABLY DIFFERENT FROM THE FARALLONS 



(P. a, albociliatus) 



appearance, her sleek shininess being due in large measure, no doubt, to 

 her frequent ablutions. 



Unlike the Baird Cormorant, which is nervous and nighty to a fault, 

 the Farallon is a plain, home-loving body, very amiable if treated with 

 reasonable consideration. Partly because of her more phlegmatic dis- 

 position, and partly, no doubt, because most of her eggs have hatched 

 by vacation time (which is as early as most of us get around to pay a 

 visit to the sea-bird isles) , it is often possible to get very close to brooding 

 birds of this species. I have sat down on the very door-step (marble 

 or merely whitewashed mattered not) of a shagine home and visited with 

 the occupant to heart's content. 



Farallon cormorants usually deposit their complement of eggs 

 during the first week of May, and are, therefore, the earliest nesters of 

 the three local species. The nests are usually built of sticks if these are 

 available. In default of these, as on the Farallon Islands themselves, 

 the birds pluck coarse weeds instead. There is no proper lining, but 

 various soft substances, such as bark, moss, sea-weed, rags and feathers, 

 are incorporated in the structure, which is usually placed in an exposed 

 situation, — the crest of a ridge or the summit of a rock. 



A typical cormorant rookery is, of course, foul from every conceivable 

 source. The nests and rocks are white with excrement, and with this the 

 callow young are more or less besmeared. Then about the nests lie frag- 

 ments of uneaten fish, and to these flies swarm in myriads. Add to the 

 general raciness of odor an occasional overdone egg, and you have a fine 

 unsavory mess of it. 



1942 



