blp shabash 430x45
Inspiring and Supporting Photographers of Australian Birds

Great Pied Cormorant

Great Pied Cormorant (Image ID 39430)
Photographed byJim Schultz on Sat 29th Feb, 2020 and uploaded on Tue 3rd Mar, 2020 .
Resolution1370x971
Viewed212
ID39430
CommentThe Great Pied Cormorant is predominantly a marine species, but can be found in inland waters over a great deal of mainland Australia, barring Western Australia where as a rule it keeps to the shoreline. It seems paramount for its occurrence that it has an ample supply of undisturbed, small, exposed rocks near the coast or suitable logs and perches by rivers, lakes and estuaries. The species is much larger than the Little Pied Cormorant, and with yellow facial skin, neither can it readily be mistaken for the Black-faced Cormorant, where these occur together. Besides, come breeding season, the facial skin of both sexes turns purple on the gular pouch and a bright blue spot develops below each eye. The diet is mostly fish, with 10% made up of prawns and crustaceans; this diet previously saw the species pursued by man. Breeding by and large takes place in small colonies, pairs being pretty sedentary, but young birds may roam somewhat. Woodman Spit; GPS. Status (2018): Least Concern
EquipmentOlympus OM-D E-M1X camera body with Olympus 300mm f4 IS Pro ED M.Zuiko lens + MC-14 Teleconverter; Velbon Neo Carmagne Carbon Tripod with Manfrotto Ball Head Art 498RC2.
Camera settings: Exposure Program/Shooting Mode: ‘Manual’; shutter speed 1/640 sec, f9 & ISO-320. Metering Mode: ‘CenterWeightedAverage’; Focus Mode: ‘Continous-AF’ with the AF-system further set to ‘AF-Target Mode’ and a target group of 9 sensors (3x3). Drive: ‘Sequential shooting (1frame)’ in ‘Continuous Low’. Maximum burst rate habitually set to 12 to prevent filling up the buffer for which reason also I shoot only in RAW. Image Stabilizer left off. In-Camera Sharpness +2. (These settings are also the combination I favour for birds in flight; it took a lot of experimentation with the OM-D E-M1X/300 mm F4 lens combo to find a merger of settings suitable for this challenging discipline.)
Olympus Workspace for metadata; FastStone for viewing & sorting; Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw/CC 2020 for post-processing; Topaz Pro plug-ins Sharpen AI, DeNoise AI & Studio 2 for sharpening and noise control. ‘Australian Bird Guide 2019’ for identification, supplementary data and colour checks
LocationWoodman Spit; GPS, Western Australia
Keywordsadult, breeding plumage/features
You already have an outstanding request to download this image for non-commercial purposes. You may cancel this request by clicking on the button below and waiting for confirmation that your request has been noted. When you have selected all the images that you require, go to 'My Download Requests' (under Photo Gallery) and submit your request by clicking 'Edit/Submit' and filling out the details. You will be advised of the result by email. Note that cookies MUST be enabled for this to work.
You may request download of this image for non-commercial purposes. A request that meets the usage rights of this image will be automatically approved; a request that does not meet the usage rights will be refused, but may (at the Download Manager's discretion) be referred to the photographer. The usage rights of this image are: Any non-commercial educational or conservation use by any requestor, excluding personal use. For further details of image usage rights, see here. Request the image by clicking on the button below and waiting for confirmation that your request has been noted. When you have selected all the images that you require, go to 'My Download Requests' (under Photo Gallery) and submit your request by clicking 'Edit/Submit' and filling out the details. You will be advised of the result by email. Note that cookies MUST be enabled for this to work.
Previous17554/31429 in Main LibraryNext
Previous47/151 by Jim SchultzNext
Previous47/88 of Great Pied CormorantNext
Previous215/485 of Cormorants and ShagsNext
Previous18135/34074 OverallNext
Use the arrows at the left and Right hand side of this page to display the Next/Previous photographs in that group, or click on one of the blue links above to start a slide show in that group (group slide shows are only allowed if there are less than 1000 images in the group).

CONTACT US

The easiest way to contact us is by emailing us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Our People page, in the About Us section, contains email links to each of the committee members.