Cormorants or Shags in Helensburgh, Scotland? (1 Viewer)

I was led to believe that there are no Cormorants in Helensburgh, only Shags, admittedly by my sister who doesn't know much about birds but she said she'd been told by someone who did. When I looked at these birds more closely I thought they looked suspiciously like juvenile Cormorants - yellow around the bills and rounded head shape - which would be a pity as I see Cormorants in Sweden all the time.
Grateful for any pointers!

The heavy bill, head, and body all said cormorant to me. But, perhaps I'm wrong. I'm not too familiar with shags!

Hi Your spot on these are Juv Cormorants

Macswede said:

I was led to believe that there are no Cormorants in Helensburgh, only Shags, admittedly by my sister who doesn't know much about birds but she said she'd been told by someone who did. When I looked at these birds more closely I thought they looked suspiciously like juvenile Cormorants - yellow around the bills and rounded head shape - which would be a pity as I see Cormorants in Sweden all the time.
Grateful for any pointers!

Click to expand...

Hi Macswede

I am sure about the Cormorants situation on Helensburgh is healthy from my own experience, and Scottish background. Cormorants appear to be in healthy abundance in Scotland at the moment. I have seen enough of them on the Scottish Coast, while I lived there, all over the place.

What you could be seeing on your photo's is a Juv Cormorant as the white colouration behind the yellow area of the bill is not apparent on your photo (from my eyes). So, I agree with Tim that the bill is too heavy to be a Shag.

An adult Cormorant has a large bill, with a prominent white area around the cheek. That is another way of separating them as different species,

Shag's on the other hand have smaller more defined bills, and no colouration at all. The bill is yellow and there is no other colouration attached to the bill or the head area at all. The only colouration is with the Juvs, which have white under their chin area.

Also the Cormorant is a much larger bird than the Shag. The Cormorant is 3 feet long with a wing span of 4 and a half feet
The Shag on the other hand is 2 and half feet long with a wing span of 3 and a half feet.

Shags are slimmer sleeker birds to look at, and not so heavy set as the Cormorant's

So there is a big difference in their sizes too. :t:

Hope that this helps here :t:

I think that these birds are all cormorants. I'm pretty familiarized with this species. It's common on Black Sea coast. On the other hand, I have to say that I didn't see a shag in the wild...

Thanks very much, Tim, Dave, Peewit and Cristian,
I'm also much more familiar with Cormorants than Shags, Cristian. The only time I see Shags is in Scotland but of course now I have to ask myself how many of these were really Cormorants .
Peewit, you gave me lots of great pointers. Thanks! I should have noticed the difference in size but I think it was a case of seeing what you expect to see. I think I've learned a lesson from this. Seeing what you expect to see can result in missing some interesting birds and next time I'm in Helensburgh certainly I'll look much more carefully at the Shags and Cormorants.

Yes, all cormorants as you yourself identified in the first post Graham.