Phalacrocorax carbo
Silhouette: Ferran Sayol · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~60%
The great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo), also known as just cormorant in Britain, as black shag or kawau in New Zealand, formerly also known as the great black cormorant across the Northern Hemisphere, the black cormorant in Australia, and the large cormorant in India, is a widespread member of the cormorant family of seabirds. It breeds in much of the Old World, Australasia, and the Atlantic coast of North America.
The great cormorant was formally described in 1758 by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Pelecanus carbo. Linnaeus specified the type location as "Europe", but this was restricted to the "rock-nesting form of the north Atlantic Ocean" by the German ornithologist Ernst Hartert in 1920. The great cormorant is now one of 12 species placed in the genus Phalacrocorax that was introduced in 1760 by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson. The genus name is Latinised Ancient Greek, from φαλακρός (phalakros, "bald") and κόραξ (korax, "raven"); the specific epithet carbo is Latin for "charcoal".
Six subspecies are accepted. These are listed below with their breeding ranges... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dakar | 🇸🇳 Senegal | |
| 2 | Tokyo | 🇯🇵 Japan | |
| 3 | Liverpool | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 4 | Nagoya | 🇯🇵 Japan | |
| 5 | Osaka | 🇯🇵 Japan | |
| 6 | Turin | 🇮🇹 Italy | |
| 7 | Fukuoka | 🇯🇵 Japan | |
| 8 | Hiroshima | 🇯🇵 Japan | |
| 9 | Rotterdam [The Hague] | 🇳🇱 Netherlands | |
| 10 | Copenhagen | 🇩🇰 Denmark |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Great Cormorant sighting in Sydney on a given day, based on 2,267 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 56th most-seen of the 243 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 30%, and over a week to about 60%, if each day is a fresh chance.
December and January
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Great Cormorant in Sydney on a given day, against about 10% in February to November, the lowest months.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Great Cormorant sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
96th of 187
Of the 187 cities where we can rate Great Cormorant sightings, Sydney ranks 96th at about 10%. The best odds are in Dakar (Senegal, about 70%), Tokyo (Japan, about 70%) and Liverpool (United Kingdom, about 60%).
Same genus: Phalacrocorax
The closest relatives of the Great Cormorant that you can see in Sydney (genus Phalacrocorax, Typical Old World Cormorants) are Little Black Cormorant (about 40%) and Australian Pied Cormorant (about 20%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Great Cormorant is recorded against all the birds logged in Sydney (2,267 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
