Gayle & Tweeters,

Thank you for the report about the Orcas Island CBC.

Your report about Brandt's Cormorants is a good one. When I worked at
the Farallon Islands off San Francisco, one of my jobs was to tally band
recoveries of BRCO. We banded a few hundred BRCO chicks every year in
one of our study colonies, and got band recoveries from up and down the
Pacific Coast from Canada to Mexico. The Farallones has the largest BRCO
colony in the world, so these band recoveries are probably fairly
indicative of what BRCOs do in the winter.

Interestingly, other than central California, one of the main spots for
Farallon Island BRCO band recoveries in winter is southern British
Columbia. They may form large offshore feeding flocks -- Kees Vermeer of
the Canadian Wildlife Service has reported feeding flocks containing
several thousand BRCO in Haro Strait. Many of the band recoveries we
received from BC are subadult birds, showing that many young Farallon
BRCO fly north along the coast after the breeding season. Most adult
band recoveries are from California, suggesting that ages may segregate
during the non-breeding season. (But it might also mean that young birds
have higher mortality at the northern part of their wintering range, so
more are found dead by beachwalkers.)

Brandt's Cormorants seem to prefer roosting on offshore rocks and islets,
rather than on piers and pilings like Double-cresteds and Pelagics.
Consequently, we don't seem to see as many of them near shore. Maybe
that is why they seem relatively scarce compared to their congeners.

So keep looking for Brandt's Cormorants in the winter -- they're really
here.

Bob Boekelheide
Sequim