Double-crested Cormorant influx reaches Irish waters
News of a bird on a survey vessel off the south-west Irish coastline follows a significant arrival of the species in the Azores.
THIS autumn’s influx of Doublecrested Cormorants to Europe reached Irish waters, with a bird photographed on a boat on 29 September.
The cormorant came to feed at discards from a Spanish survey vessel at the Porcupine Bank approximately 240 km off Valentia Island, Co Kerry, and even came aboard the ship. It was initially assumed to be a European Shag, but photos were sent to Spanish birders, who identified it as the North American rarity.
The bird followed a significant arrival of Double-crested Cormorants in the Azores, with its appearance strongly coinciding with the first individuals turning up in the mid-Atlantic archipelago. The initial Azorean records came from Corvo and Faial on 1 October, with at least a dozen different birds seen across six islands in the archipelago since then.
This is the biggest arrival of the species since October 2002, when at least 27 different birds were found in the space of a few weeks – including groups of 11 on Flores and five on Corvo.
It is an very rare vagrant away from the Azores, with just one previous record apiece for Britain and Ireland. The sole British occurrence came at the slightly surprising location of Billingham, Cleveland, between 11 January and 26 April 1989. The Irish bird was perhaps a little more expected in terms of date and location: a first-winter spent several weeks at Nimmo’s Pier, Co Galway, between 18 November 1995 and 6 January 1996. ■