Mystery Bird: Double-Crested Cormorant, Phalacrocorax auritus

John and Adrian,

It would seem that our friend, the "bald raven", is twice oxymoronic, so if you can somehow explain the thinking of René Lesson, I'm "all ears"!

Based on the black webbed feet, some kind of cormorant.

Agreed as to those looking like cormorant feet. The brownish tone in the belly makes me think it's a juvenile, and the location makes me think it's either Double-crested or Neotropic. I can't see a lot to help me distinguish between the two; Sibley talks about the greater contrast that can be seen between the throat, breast, and belly of the immature Double-crested, and the longer tail of the Neotropic, but I don't think this photo helps much with either of those.

I'm going to go ahead and call it a Double-crested, just because they're more common and widespread, though I realize that's a suspect hook on which to hang an ID. I plan to go peek at the answer on Joseph Kennedy's site, but I'm curious if there are other clues that the more-expert types can cite to help with this one.

Neat challenge!

Hey John,

I'll explain my obtuse comment #1 a little later (!) but I based my choice upon the fact that immature Double-cresteds are significantly paler than adults and therefore ostensibly a mottled brown, whereas immature Neotropics are slghtly paler than comparable adults which are already more brownish that the Double-crested and so would appear much lighter than above...

Texas Parks and Wildlife: Distinguishing Double-cresteds from lookalike relatives

This has nothing to do with birds...odd. Happy New Year to someone for whom it really will be a new year!

OK John,

Having studied this a little further I am faced with that typical scenario where one can convince oneself that the first impression or first choice was wrong, change one's mind to another choice, and then find out they should have gone with... the first choice!

I have found numerous winter Neotropic Cormorants displaying almost identical coloring to the one above and indeed, they are numerous in downtown Houston and at Hermann Park as above, but I have also found a few immature (2nd winter) and numerous "winter brown" adult Double-cresteds looking virtually identical...!

"winter brown" Double-crested

winter Neotropic

Re. #1

It would seem that our friend, the "bald raven", is twice oxymoronic, so if you can somehow explain the thinking of René Lesson, I'm "all ears"!

Phalacrocorax from the Greek words ÏαλακÏÎ¿Ï (bald) and κοÏαξ (crow, raven) and auritus is the Latin for "eared"... René Primevère Lesson was a naval surgeon but also the naturalist who described the Double-crested Cormorant in his 1831 Traité d'ornithologie, ou Tableau méthodique des ordres, sous-ordres, familles, tribus, genres, sous-genres et races d'oiseaux.

twice oxymoronic

good one again David, double crests on a bald raven!