phalacrocorax carbo
Monday, October 26, 2026 — 9:06 a.m.
Chesapeake Bay, Delaware — Cape May-Lewes Ferry
While on our eastern vacation, we made reservations on this ferry because my wife likes boat rides and I like birds. I stood on the deck almost all the time we crossed over to Cape May and back, looking at scoters, gannets, gulls, cormorants, and a few other species.
I knew to look for Great Cormorants from eBird, and I even knew where to look, since most of the photos of them from this location show them on a particular channel marker. I didn’t have my scope, so the best I could do was take zoom photos from the moving deck of the boat. There were many Double-crested Cormorants around for comparison/confusion. We never got very close to the marker, but I was pretty sure on the way north that I was seeing a couple birds that were larger and had more white on the face.
I made sure I was in the best possible position on the way back south, and I think we may have passed a little closer to the marker. But it was a bird on one of the nearby rocks that convinced me.
The bird in the very center of the photo, just to the left of the gull, is preening its feathers in the exact same position as the two other birds to its left. It is clearly wider and taller and has more white on the face.
This is actually a different photo, zoomed in more. Again, the cormorant on the right is wider and taller, and has more white on the face. It was this bird that convinced me to count it. It’s not a very satisfactory view, but it may be as close as I ever get to a Great Cormorant.
