Brant’s cormorants are common throughout the Salish Sea in winter, not so much in summer when they’re focused on nesting and raising a family. For this part of their lives, look for them along the outer coast around offshore rocks where they nest or roost together, or mixed with other seabirds diving for a meal of small fish such as Pacific herring. Three cormorant species are here, Brant’s, double-crested and pelagic. This one is sized in the middle at about 3’ long (bill to tail) with a 4-foot wingspan. A big bird – but only about half the size of a bald eagle. Brant’s have the shortest tail of the local cormorants, making identification easier. The blue face patch is seen only during breeding and is a truly beautiful iridescent shade of turquoise that matches its eyes.

Most birds have hollow bones. This allows them to fly easier, a design fact shared with every airplane ever built. It takes energy to life heavy objects into the air and so evolution has always favored lighter birds that require smaller flight muscles and less energy (food). Not so with cormorants. These birds have solid bones that permit them to easily swim underwater in search of a meal. They can expel air trapped under feathers, allowing them to sink just below the surface, neck and head looking like a submarine’s periscope. I’ve seen this and immediately thought I was seeing a snake of some sort, and, sure enough, another name for cormorants is ‘snake bird’. Most often, these birds are seen flying in a long line mast-height over the water and heading for either fishing grounds or to a night roosting rock.

Larry Eifert paints and the Pacific Northwest from Port Townsend. His large-scale murals can be seen in many national parks across America, and at larryeifert.com.