Mystery Bird: Neotropical Cormorant, Phalacrocorax brasilianus

Just for David -

It's got brown bark, with lighter green/white lichen (?). The wood under the bark is red. And it's just above water

There's a black bird with shiny webbed feet, but they're passé for you now, aren't they?

I'll add, for David, that the tail is longish, and extends about one and a half leg lengths beyond the perching foot, almost vertically down into the water.

It looks too long for a duck tail to me, and held more vertically than I think of ducks holding their tails. It looks like we can see the tips of the primaries, and the very tip looks light, either through wear or color or lighting?

I'm guessing Double-Crested Cormorant, based on black feathers and heavy looking webbed feet, tail length and position. It looks like the Neotropic Cormorant might also extend to the area, so it could be that, too?

We can see the tips of the primaries, so it doesn't look like it's doing the cormorant hanging its wings out to dry thing. From what I can see looking on the web, and Anhinga would have yellowy feet rather than black, and a longer tail?

Bardiac: both cormorant species for that area (Double-crested and Neotropic) and the Anhinga have tails obviously longer than any duck, with the Anhinga's longer than that of cormorants, but if the feet are dark then Anhinga is indeed ruled out.

Of the two cormorant species from a distance in winter, the Double-crested has a brown wash, the Neoptropic looks glossy black, but in close-up, both could look like they have brownish primaries, especially if opened out in that typical cormorant stance.

Bob: how about a Texas Madrone, Arbutus texana?

Okay, just for fun, guys, can anyone give a specific reason why this isn't any of the waterfowl? Yes, the tail is too long, but there's something else ...

And re. the branch, based on the nubs of smaller branches, I'm guessing that this thing is long dead, probably when the location was flooded.

psweet: count the number of toes that are webbed.

I was surprised that no one mentioned the totipalmate foot.

David: We can rule out Texas Madrone, which has red bark, not wood, and does not occur on the upper Texas coast or in its watershed.

hmmm, cormorants have totipalmate feet with all four toes connected with webbing, ducks have palmate feet where only the three front toes are webbed, and grebes have lobate feet where each toes is lobed but not connected by webbing- there are some exceptions like the nene which has semipalmate feet, presumably an adaptation that allows the bird to both swim effectively and walk on land

If you want to actually see lobate toes, check out a coot.

Sheri, I wasn't sure if Bob was referring to the actual xylem or the "appearance" of red wood, so I tried to bracket the two concepts!

I'll need to see it more closely, but other than red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), which is recorded for Brazoria County, I'm not really familiar with any other woods that I would call "red" other than one of the Caesalpinia or Pomaria species, but only as an ornamental as the native/naturalized distributions (mexicana, pulcherrima, gilliesii) are too far west or south...

there are several styles of lobate feet. first, there's grebe style lobate feet and then there's coot style lobate feet.

Grebe feet are arguably weirder (the flattened toenails are just freaky), but I've got a soft spot in my heart for coot lobes.

Thanks, Grrl. (and Sheri). I was hoping someone would look that one up.

Hey David, just so you know, I don't see any "red" wood nor any lichen, so I think you've been a little misled!

Thanks Maggie, I see what you mean! Bob?!?!

Anyway, although we can't see the entire bird to give us a direct proportionality idea of tail to body length, my first impression is that it is indeed a Neotropic Cormorant and not a Double-crested, not just because of the tail length, which appears rather long to me, but also because I have noticed the light patches on the inner tips of the primaries (Bardiac, you are correct, this bird has its wings folded) and along the edges of the tail feathers are not light or white coloration, but what has been described to me as "light off", i.e. sunlight reflecting off the shininess of what I assume to be breeding plumage feathers- this photo shows both the "light off" from the back and wings of the Neotropic as well as the few actual white feathers that can be found on the neck and of course the characteristic white tufts... the breeding season for this species of cormorant in Texas is rather long, starting early January and lasting all the way until December, so I think this fits...

Bird foot fetishists! Who knew?

apparently, adrian (a fan of mystery birds) has been experiencing problems with commenting. he emailed me and said that for the previous few days, all he gets when going into the comments is the picture and blurb but no comments or comments block. i checked to make sure i had not banned his IP address (as part of my own aggressive anti-spam campaign) but, no i had not. i am checking with the overlords to see if they can suss this problem out, but until then, i am not sure how to work around this problem except to try accessing mystery birds via a different IP; go to a coffee shop, library or use a neighbor's IP. you can also try using a different browser -- internet exploder, especially out-of-date IE, is the source of all evil, for example. if any of these suggestions work, please do leave a comment, letting me know what you did. otherwise, i am open to suggestions, which you are invited to email to me. all relevant emails and comments will be passed on to the overlords; emails such as "SB comments are teh suxxors!" will be giggled at.