Range of the Pelagic Cormorant:

Breeds from the Bering Sea to Japan and south to near San Diego, USA.  Winters in the Aleutian Islands and along the coast from British Columbia to Baja, California.

Pelagic cormorants nest at Race Rocks and live there year-round. They prefer the cliff to the West of the camera 5, and can often be seen perched there along the cliff edge (picture above left)

Nest

The nest is a mass of seaweed and grass on a cliff.  Pelagic cormorants nest in colonies and like ledges so narrow they must land and take off facing the cliff. During the years between 1980 and 1995 numbers of nests ranged above 20. In the years 2000, 2001,2002 there was complete nest failure due to the lack of herring feed in the surrounding waters. During 2003 , 2004, and 2005 only two or three nests have been established with successful hatches.

In th spring of 2005, Pam Birley took these pictures of a cormorant pulling up grass from the ground from the remote camera 5	Presumably this was for nest building. We have seen them carrying mouthfuls of seawed to the nest previously, but this was the first observation of this behaviour.	November 2005 plumage

Diet.

Pelagic cormorants eat crustaceans and small non-schooling fish near rocky bottoms and reefs.

Local Numbers

Pelagic cormorants have been counted at Race Rocks during all the Christmas Bird Counts

      Year

2003- no census taken...too stormy!

2004- 110

2005- 20

2006-20
2007-42
2008-storm
2009-90