The double crested cormorant (DCCO) is the most common cormorant in the United States, but you wouldn’t know that in Sea Ranch since we see relatively few of these guys around. Unlike the Pelagic Cormorant and the Brandt’s Cormorant, the Double Crested Cormorant prefers to nest around freshwater. Their orange faces make identification easy.
Double Crested Cormorant in flight
The majestic Great Blue Heron(GBHE) is certainly a sight to behold, unless you happen to be a small animal living in shallow water because by the time you see this stealthy assassin you have likely been snatched out the water and impaled by its bill and will soon be eaten. Sometimes it’s good to be human.
Great Blue Heron hunting during low tide
It might be cheating to include this picture of a Brown Pelican (BRPE pronounced Burp–ee) since it was actually taken in Cabo nearly 2 years ago, but who cares about technicalities anyway. On the West Coast Brown Pelicans breed down in Mexico and make their way up north to hang out and feed. As intimidating as these guys can be, we are lucky to have them around since we had nearly driven them to extinction by the 1960s by spraying DDT everywhere. Thankfully a really awesome woman by the name of Rachel Carson came along and and published Silent Spring in 1962. It only took 10 more years of spraying DDT everywhere and killing tons of birds before DDT was finally banned. As Winston Churchill once said “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing–after they’ve tried everything else”
A rather intimidating Brown Pelican
Rachel Carson- marine biologist, author, BRPE savior and DDT eradicator