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Topic: Temminck's Cormorant (or not?) (Read 1442 times) |
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HF_Cheung
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Temminck's Cormorant (or not?)
« on: Apr 19th, 2005, 5:40pm » |
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This two photos were taken on 17 April 2005 at Po Toi, and are on the same bird. The third photo (two birds) is borrowed from ML Chiang of Taipei Wild Bird Society. Based on this information, I would say that Temminck's Cormorant in HK has been positively identified. Agree?
Canon 1D, 100-400 mm/5.6 lens
Photo 1
Photo 2
Photo 3
HF Cheung
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Mike Kilburn
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Re: Temminck's Cormorant (or not?)
« Reply #1 on: Apr 19th, 2005, 7:06pm » |
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Dear Ho Fai
Your pix are intriguing and potentially exciting, but it would help to have some explanation of why you suspect this bird of being Temminck's - I do not have your expertise!
Cheers
Mike K
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Mike Kilburn
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HF_Cheung
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Re: Temminck's Cormorant (or not?)
« Reply #2 on: Apr 19th, 2005, 7:34pm » |
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Refer to photo 3: gc5 is Great Cormorant, jc5 is Temminick's (Japanese) Cormorant. The main differences are:
(1) The area of bare skin around the eye is greater on Temminck's.
(2) On Temminck's, the bare skin comes to a point near the gape.
There is a lengthy discussion of this (in Chinese) in the following website.
http://kite.center.kl.edu.tw/cgi-bin/topic.cgi?forum=16&topic=960&am p;start=10&show=
HF Cheung
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HF_Cheung
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Re: Temminck's Cormorant (or not?)
« Reply #4 on: Apr 19th, 2005, 8:46pm » |
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I don't know whether this is useful on this bird. Most Great Cormorants have scally appearance on the back, but this is much less so on Temminck's. Please see the photo of the same bird, but this time concentrate on the appearance of the back. Although the quality of the photo is far from satisfactory, the back do appear without scales.
The problem is that I cannot find any photo of really young birds, and so do not have a good comparison of the appearance of the facial pattern and the back. If someone have a good photo, please post it on.
HF Cheung
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miket
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Re: Temminck's Cormorant (or not?)
« Reply #5 on: Apr 20th, 2005, 12:10am » |
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It looks very good for Temminck's/Japanese - pity more of us didn't look at it, but we wouldn't have known what we were looking for. In this way are the frontiers of bird identification forever advancing.
Think we need to look at existing photos of Great from Mai Po etc. to confirm constancy of gape shape etc. + to encourage people to photograph more, at that location and elsewhere.
Mike Turnbull
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Yat-tung YU
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Re: Temminck's Cormorant (or not?)
« Reply #7 on: Apr 20th, 2005, 2:21pm » |
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A paper on the identification of the Temminck's Cormorant:
Lethaby, N and Moores, N. 1999. Identification of Temminck's Cormorant. Dutching Birding 21(1): 1-7
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Uncle_Tall
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Re: Temminck's Cormorant (or not?)
« Reply #8 on: Apr 20th, 2005, 8:50pm » |
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This is very interesting indeed. I have reposted here a picture of Temmincks Cormorant in winter plumage from Hokkaido in Dec 2003 for comparison:
I would like to highlight some of my observations and thoughts:
1. Temminck Cormorant is quite pelagic. Some authors even said you won't find it perching on a tree (Peter Harrison 1983). The habitat where the photo was taken is right for a Temminck Cormorant.
2. The size of bare skin, angle of gape and white skin under bill are classical desciption. However when I went through ALL the cormorants pictures in the BBS here before the server was down, I can't be sure with the wintering cormorants in HK.
3. Colour of the bill may be an very important clue in this region - yellow or at least some yellow tinge for the Temminck, pearl or grey for Great in East Asia (This is supported by "A field guide to the birds of Korea written by WS Lee, TH Koo and JY Park and "A photographic guide to the Birds of Japan" by H Maki & T Ohnishi.) You can check with posts in this BBS.
4. For Great Cormorants in Europe, the bill is yellow.
5. This bird is a juvenile bird because of the extensive white breast. It is the same for both Common and Temminck. I have photo for immature Temminck Cormorant in summer in Hokkaido showing a yellow bill. It would be great if we have photos of juvenile or immautre Great Cormorant from place like Qinghai.
I think this one is quite likely a Temminck Cormorant.
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| « Last Edit: Apr 20th, 2005, 10:24pm by Uncle_Tall » |
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Karl
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Re: Temminck's Cormorant (or not?)
« Reply #9 on: Apr 21st, 2005, 1:42pm » |
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I have sent a mail to Nial Moores, one of the author of the paper "Identification of Temminck's Cormorant." Tung has mentioned above. Please find the reply below and thanks Nial Moores for the informative description. Congratulation to Ho Fai, no birds seem to escape from your eagle eyes.
Quote"
Although I do not have access to my own images and notes, and have very little experience of Great Cormorant in Hong Kong, based on ca 15 years experience of Temminck's Cormorant in Japan and Korea (including 3 or 4 individuals seen yesterday), I personally would have no doubt identifying the bird in the images as a Temminck's...
Although it is PERHAPS possible that there might be two forms of Great Cormorant in the region, I believe the Temmincks' in your images is still very safely identifiable on:
1) the yellowness of the lower mandible: absolutely typical of non-breeding and immature Temmincks, and never noted yet in Great in Korea or Japan (immature Great has a rather greyer lower mandible at this time of year, occasionally somewhat pinky-grey toned in mid-winter in some birds. I assume that this is the same for birds in Hong Kong?).
2) The cleanness and extent of the yellow lores ("carrying on from the bill"), often extending in a slight wedge towards the forehead in Temminck's (typically lores look duller and show some greyer line or markings in Great at this time of year, and the forehead is often more broadly feathered);
3) Diagnostically, the very obvious gape line coming back (much straighter rear to bare facial skin in Great). The bird in your image matches Temminck's and is beyond any Great that I have noted.
4) The thickness of the yellow bare skin below and around the eye, often encircling it more obviously in Temminck's than Great (usually some feathering extends in a narrow wedge below and towards eye in Great, with bare skin around eye appearing rather thinner). The bird in the two images looks typical for Temminck's in this respect.
5) The line of white/whitish feathering to the rear of the facial bare skin. In Great at this age, this appears rather angular and straight/vertical; in Temminck's this line is broken by the gape line, and often forms a kind of "v" shape as it curves around, before extending more obviously along the underside of the bill than in Great;
6) And as two further supporting features: (a) the very clean white look to the underparts (very typical of many immature Temminck's at this time of the year; (b) habitat. Although Great can be found in such habitat, Temminck's genuinely is a bird much more of rocky coasts. I have very rarely observed it in eg estuaries and have never seen one on freshwater.
Hope very much that the above comments are of use. Will be happy, if/as time allows, to send images or more formal comments at a later date if needed.
"Unquote
Karl.
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cywong
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Re: Temminck's Cormorant (or not?)
« Reply #10 on: May 6th, 2005, 12:11am » |
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The following photos were taken in Hokkaido in July2004 with FZ10. The bird has some features of Temminck's Cormorant but I am not sure whether it is a Temminck's Cormorant or not.
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