Figure 81. Compared with a Double-crested Cormorant (left), note the smaller size and small, pale-edged gular pouch of this adult Neotropic Cormorant (right), photographed upon its 28 April 1998 discovery at the Salton Sea near Obsidian Butte, Imperial County (1998-079; Kenneth Z. Kurland).

 

 

 

 

 

NEOTROPIC CORMORANT Phalacrocorax brasilianus (Gmelin, 1789)

Accepted: 13 (93%)	Treated in Appendix H: no
Not accepted: 1	CBRC review: all records
Not submitted/reviewed: 1	Color image: none

This small cormorant occupies aquatic habitats across much of the contiguous land mass south of the United States. Its distribution is localized in northwestern Mexico, including southern Baja California Sur. In addition to a substantial population in Texas and smaller ones in adjacent states, this species is expanding its range in Arizona (the population closest to California) and is now resident north to the Phoenix area (NAB 58:265, Corman and Wise-Gervais 2005). Southern Nevada claims a single winter record. Individuals wander regularly to the central Great Plains and have strayed farther north to South Dakota, Minnesota, Illinois, and southern Ontario (Tozer and Milsom 2006), and northeast to Virginia/Maryland (NAB 60:50).

California’s first Neotropic Cormorant, an adult discovered on 13 April 1971 at West Pond (near Imperial Dam) in Imperial County, returned the following two springs (Jones 1971b). Another adult at West Pond during fall 1981 provided the state’s first physically documented record (Binford 1985). First- and second-year birds are more difficult to identify (see Patten 1993b), and only six such individuals have been recorded, all during a spring 1996 influx to Imperial County.

All of California’s records come from the Salton Sea and the vicinity of Imperial Dam on the lower Colorado River, and only one falls outside the period of 7 April–7 October. Exceptional was a long-staying or frequently returning bird detected intermittently at the Salton Sea between 1982 and 1987. The apparent lack of a mate did not prevent this bird from assembling a nest—later commandeered by Double-crested Cormorants—near the mouth of the New River, Imperial County, 27 February–5 March 1983 (Morlan 1985).

One is tempted to correlate the increased frequency of California records during the 1990s with the Neotropic Cormorant’s general northward range expansion in recent decades (e.g., Corman and Wise-Gervais 2005, Telfair and Morrison 2005) or with rising observer awareness, but the lack of acceptable California records between July 1999 and the end of 2006 (cf. the Black-bellied Whistling-Duck account) suggests that any such relationships that may exist are less than straightforward.

 

 

[GREAT CORMORANT Phalacrocorax carbo (Linnaeus, 1758) – see hypothetical section]