Herb Curl wrote:

Cormorants seem like a rather independent lot, off the colony, with some air
drying, and some not, with little or no interaction, so signalling appears
unlikely to me.


Au contraire, cormorants seem to be highly social - ever seen the squabbles
which result when a bird coming into roost on a marker buoy tries to
displace another - depending on their social status it can be quite a
brutal affair !!!!

Roosts of European Cormorant (Phalacorocorax carbo) are hghly orgnaised with
birds returtning to the same perch every night. The position of the perches
is dependent on age and social status - young birds are found at the edge
of the roost, older birds in the centre.

I tend to agree with Dennis, there is likely to be some other function
involved with wing drying, figuring it out might not be that hard though
it would take a lot of fieldwork - preferably with individually marked
birds.

Do wing drying birds maintain their social status on groups or do they stay
of the way until they are dry - either by using different perches when
drying themselves or giving way to usurpers more easily ???

Stuart - Raleigh, North Carolina.