Cormorant drying

[Kerry Perkins]

Cormorants, like this double-crested, have no natural oils to apply to their feathers to prevent them from getting waterlogged. Other water birds don't have this problem and the term "water off a duck's back" comes from that fact. So this is why you see cormorants drying their plumage in the sun like this. When their feathers are full of water they become heavy and flight is difficult.

50D, 70-200mm +1.4x TC@280mm
Av mode + 2/3, f/8@1/250, ISO 200 WB 5100K
AI Servo autofocus, HH, no flash

[Gary Thompson]

Terrific image Kerry. Wonderful pose with good eye contact and head angle. Details and sharpness are right there. I like it.

Gary

[Cheryl Slechta]

Kerry, I love the typical cormy pose and details. The dark wings against the blue water looks great.
I find the flap of canvas on the left of the dock mildly distracting and a crop from the bottom would eliminate a lot of it but I'd hate to lose the wood - I like that part a lot.

[Gerald Kelberg]

Love the pose - of course. And the explanation of the drying behavior is really interesting.

Cormorants are tough to get right even when the light is behind you! The body of the bird seems to be lacking detail - it looks pretty near solid black to me - but maybe I just can't distinguish the variation. Perhaps the head was a little softer than the wings - interested to know what the point of focus was. There seems to be a little bit of a sharpening halo around the bill and the left wing.

But I like the shot and the dock gives a great feeling of the environment - so maybe I would try a looser crop that shows more of the dock and isn't quite so tight on the head.

Thanks for sharing!

[Richard Stern]

Hi Kerry,

I too like the pose, the details, the head angle and the texture of the wood. The metal ring below the right wing is a bit distracting, and I might consider removing it. I'm not bothered by the flap of canvas Cheryl mentions. I also wonder about removing the dark vertical lines on the lower mandible on the beak.

Richard

[Kerry Perkins]

Thanks for comments all! I have entered this one in a couple of contests that don't allow alteration of the image, so I have left all the little bits that are distracting.

Gerald, I'm wondering if you are able to see the difference between the two black bars in the monitor calibration strip at the bottom of the page... I see detail all over the bird and the digital color meter shows that the blacks average around 15/255 with nothing less than 10.