Cormorants and shags | Phalacrocoracidae

Aalscholvers | Cormoranes

Long-bodied dark waterbirds with a long neck and a bill sharply hooked at the tip: the fish is gripped, not speared. They dive from the surface and swim under water with both feet at once; the legs are set far back, which makes walking laboured, and the stiff wedge of a tail works as a rudder. The plumage lets itself be partly soaked, which cuts buoyancy but obliges the bird to dry off after fishing with its wings half spread — the posture the whole family is known by. The nest of sticks or weed stands in a colony on rock, in trees or in reedbeds; three or four pale blue eggs under a chalky coating, and naked young that put on black down within days.