The Brandt Cormorant 



year's nesting site visited on the Farallons was not only buried in white- 

 wash, but contained an appalling number of sodden squab skeletons. The 

 new site chosen for the season of 191 1 was on the north slope of Maintop, 

 and by the last week in A'lay was in a furor of nest-building activity. The 

 interested actions of hovering gulls suggested that community tactics 

 had been engendered as much by fear of the gull as anything else. An 

 isolated nest might easily be surrounded by a mob of these pious maraud- 

 ers, and its occupants crowded or lured away; but in a closely occupied 

 colony it is the invader who is surrounded, and a half dozen writhing 

 necks surmounted by beaks of no mean power are too much for the Larine 

 nerve. But it is also amusing to see how the Brandt Cormorants prey 

 upon each other in the matter of building material. They are always 

 grabbing at each other's haypile in passing, and once an absence is noted 

 or an easy mark discovered, the ungenerous neighbors fall upon the nest 

 and lug it off piecemeal. One bird I saw who seized a beakful which for 

 bulk was half as large as himself — a magnificent haul. 



Characteristically, the nest is a huge bowl or crater of weeds and 

 grasses, freshly plucked. Of nest-building near Point Lobos, Chapman 



Photo by the Author 



Taken on the Southeast Farallon 



THE GULLS IN POSSESSION 



OUR NECESSARY PRESENCE FRIGHTENED THE CORMORANTS AND THE WESTERN GULLS HAVE CLEANED UP EVERY 



EGG IN SIGHT 



1951 



