Great Cormorant

Phalacrocorax carbo

The great cormorant, also known as just cormorant in Britain, as black shag or kawau in New Zealand, formerly also known as the great black cormorant across the Northern Hemisphere, the black cormorant in Australia, and the large cormorant in India, is a widespread member of the cormorant family of seabirds. It breeds in much of the Old World, Australasia, and the Atlantic coast of North America. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 24,100 times across 89 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

See the Great Cormorant on the live map

Movement and weather

Each season it is first heard regularly where daytime highs are around 18°C (typically 15 to 21°C, from 13 areas). That holds across 115° of latitude, which suggests its timing follows temperature more than the calendar.

Over the weeks it was present in the past year, its centre in Europe ranged from 53°N in July to 67°N in May, about 1,500 km apart.

Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

Download every area as CSV

Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.