Dive Into Your Imagination

One of the rarest birds in the world, flightless cormorants live in the Galapagos Islands and are birds that have lost the ability to fly! Like all cormorants, they are excellent swimmers with webbed feet and powerful legs they use for swimming in the water as they hunt for fish while swimming underwater not flying overhead. They feed on fish, eels, octopus and other creatures.

Here you see the flightless cormorant drying its wings in the sunlight. Like other bird’s feathers, they are not waterproof and need to dry out between dives. They have thicker body feathers more like hair than flying birds feather. The birds are found on only two Galapagos Islands, Fernandina and Isabela. They live on rocky shores of the volcanic islands foraging in shallow waters. They camouflage their nests into the marine debris.

In order for the birds to mate during July to October, the male brings the female gifts of dried seaweed and other marine debris. Once they nest, the male and female both share in incubation, feeding and brooding the chicks. Often a couple eggs are layed but only one chick will survive to be independent. The males will tend to the chick while the female will leave the nest to mate with another male, sometimes three in one year which is one reason why the population recovers from natural disasters.

BLUE OCEAN TIP: Flightless cormorants evolved on islands free of predators. Since we colonized and expanded our population, there have been many places we have “introduced” species such as cats, dogs and pigs, so now the birds have predators. It is important to realize nature can not sustain introduced species. In addition when we fish with nets in places where birds and sea mammals forage for food, we can kill them. Support the Galapagos National Park and Marine Reserves as well as others throughout the world!

DIYI COLLECTION

What Makes A Fish, A Fish

BALANCE

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