A Great Cormorant in West Florida
A Great Cormorant in West Florida
On October 29, 1972, I observed an immature Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) on an old dock in Pensacola Bay. It had a pale yellow face, white throat, dark breast, and clear white belly and abdomen to the under tail coverts. It was also observed during the day with 7X binoculars and 30X telescope by my wife, Lucy, and Mr. and Mrs. E. E. Furnans under excellent lighting conditions. I estimated its total length at about 40 inches. Double-crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) in the vicinity were available for comparison. We had just returned from a trip to Maine, where we had seen this species for the first time. My wife took recognizable photographs of it. To the best of my knowledge this is the westernmost record of the bird in Florida. It reappeared at this location briefly on the morning of October 31. An immature Great Cormorant seen on the Alabama coast by Thomas A. Imhof in early November may have been the same individual.
Robert Duncan
614 Fairpoint Drive, Gulf Breeze, Florida 32561.
