Who knew that the man-made pond in a nearby suburban neighborhood would be a favorite spot for juvenile birds to hang out together? That’s what it looked like when I spotted an immature Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus) and an immature Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) together, both with their heads turned in profile, probably checking out some cute little female goose.
Actually, I couldn’t immediately identify the cormorant, though it was obvious that it was neither a duck or a goose. The way that it swam with its long neck extended and its bill pointed in the air, however, was distinctive enough to make it easy to find in my identification guide.
I like the way that these two birds posed for me, with the cormorant perched on a narrow concrete slab to compensate for the heron’s greater height and the synchronized head positions. I have seen this young heron hanging around the pond before (it’s the same heron that I featured in the Crouching heron posting this morning), but I don’t think that I have seen a cormorant there before. Usually there are only geese and occasionally some ducks, like the small flock of Ring-necked ducks that are there right now.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
That’s great. I think you’re kidding us about the suburbs and have taken up a spot in some wildlife refuge.
It’s pretty amazing, because I took this shot only a mile or so from where I live. We are blessed to be on the migration routes for a number of birds and at the northern edge of the destination areas for some of these migrants.
I’m surprised that they weren’t trying to chase each other out of the pond. I watched a heron chasing ducks at a local pond a while ago.
The only explanation I have is that I think they were juveniles and consequently were not wary of other birds (or humans for that matter). Both of them even approached geese without any issues.
Something interesting must have been going on.
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