By the time I got the car the light was already starting to fade.  It creates a nice soft light for the birds.  The birds in Oakland are very used to people, so I was able to get much closer to a Double-Crested Cormorant than usual.

In Utah, the picture below is the closest that I’ve gotten to the cormorants and it’s only because they were fishing underwater when I appeared around a bend.  So I scared the daylights out of them, which is why this is such an action shock.

I used to see Double-Crested Cormorants in front of the house in California, but they were always so far away that the pictures were too grainy.  You couldn’t even see how light the Double-Crested Cormorants are compared to other cormorants, such as this Pelagic Cormorant.

You can also see a big difference in the throat pouch.  The Double-Crested Cormorant has a giant throat pouch.

To this!

The double-crested cormorant is quite common where I live, which I now know thanks to my new lens.  I’ve seen brandt’s cormorants and pelagic cormorants in Monterey, CA, but I’m partial to the double-crested cormorant because of their green eyes and hooked beak.

Cormorants catch fish by diving up to 30 feet.

Although there is no mention of this in the guidebooks, the cormorants travel with pelicans while fishing.  I can prove it: