Cormorants vacate usual pillars for mysterious reasons

I have no idea why the cormorants are not nesting on the wooden pillars this year.

There I said it. I have asked people who know more than a thing or two about birds and they are stumped as well.

For some reason, double crested cormorants, which have been building nests, laying eggs and hatching out babies on the pillars for as long as I can remember, are now nesting along the bank. There might be a few traditional cormorants still using the pillars but certainly not the number that has been there in the past.

The cormorant issue came to light here in the newsroom last week when I received a call from a Pictou woman wondering why the nests weren’t there, so I made a call to our local avian expert Ken McKenna of New Glasgow who had also taken note of the same thing.

“I noticed that too,” he said. “I know for a while gulls were sitting on the posts and maybe that prevented them from making their nests.”

McKenna did note that the cormorants seemed to have returned to the area a little later than usual this year. He said a spring bird count few years ago calculated about 1,000 cormorants along the causeway and in Pictou Landing, but he doesn’t know the recent population numbers.

It is possible, he said, that they moved to the rocks because seagulls can pick at their eggs or babies on the pillars, but moving to lower ground would make them more susceptible to fourlegged predators such as foxes and raccoons. A call was put into the Department of Natural Resources as well who were unable to offer an answer.

According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website, cormorants typically breed in clusters of trees in or near the water, but eventually the acid in their waste destroys the trees and causes them to topple so they switch to nesting on the ground. They can fly up to 40 miles to a feeding area and, when they are finished, they will find higher ground to dry off and digest their meals.

Nests can be up to three feet in diameter and 17 inches high and are built in the centre of the colony first and expanded outward. It can be made up of sticks, seaweed and grass and the location of the nest is chosen by the male in order to attract a female. To attract a mate for the season, a male cormorant will choose a nest site and then stand with his breast down and bill and tail up, showing off the crests on his head and bright colours of his neck and eyes, grunting and slightly waving his outstretched wings. When a female arrives, she is greeted by the male opening his mouth into a gape, showing off the blue inside.

So, all very interesting facts, but nothing that I found can tell me exactly why the cormorants have chosen to move away from their high-top towers to lower ground.

I guess it will continue to be one of Pictou County’s little mysteries that continues to capture motorists’ attention for the rest of the season. But have no fear, even if you can’t see them, you will always be able to smell them.

Sueann Musick is a reporter with The News.