Selemon Paltanavičius. Cormorants cozy up in winter

There are extra of them close to the Kaunas hydroelectric dam, the place the free water of the Nemunas simmers, a number of keep within the Nemunas at its confluence with the Merkis, and they’re additionally noticed within the Neri River in Vilnius itself and additional away from town. In fact, cormorants are wonderful swimmers and divers, they may at all times catch fish in open water and won’t starve. However winter shouldn’t be the correct time for them…

in 1985 in January, fairly chilly and snowy, the stays of a terrific cormorant have been delivered to the State Nature Safety Committee, the place I used to be working on the time, from Molėtai district – somebody had eaten a lifeless chook, solely the legs and wings, some bones remained. At the moment, such a discover was a sensation, as a result of cormorants have been extraordinarily uncommon in Lithuania, and had by no means been present in winter. It was solely within the spring of that 12 months that Ramūnas Keraitis discovered the primary nest of the good cormorant on the island of Elektrėnai lagoon, in a colony of grey herons. Since then, the recorded inhabitants dimension has elevated to at the least 5,000 pairs nationwide.

However cormorants aren’t winter birds. Initially, in an actual “Lithuanian” winter, all water our bodies are coated with ice and cormorants don’t have any situations for fishing. As well as (and maybe most significantly), they’re anatomically not true waterfowl – their feathers get moist when swimming and diving, and the birds should dry them. You’ve got most likely seen cormorants perched on tree branches and holding or flapping their wings outstretched? So – in a really chilly winter, they might not be capable of do that, as a result of the feathers must be coated with ice and each dive may very well be disastrous for the birds.

No matter such issues, nice cormorants spend the winter right here increasingly typically, it’s possible that because the local weather warms, their habits will change much more clearly. In any case, it’s now doable to search for nice cormorants when touring in nature, as a result of they’re clearly seen within the white snow or on the sting of the ice. Those that have time and love to look at nature can wait and watch the birds dive and fish.

Photograph by Selemons Paltanavičius/The cormorant caught a fish

On the finish of February, they may begin touring to their colonies – at the moment it’s nonetheless chilly, however the cormorants (particularly the outdated pairs) return and already in March they restore their nests and begin breeding.