Japanese Cormorant Phalacrocorax capillatus 綠背鸕鷀
Category I. Rare winter visitor to rocky coasts.
IDENTIFICATION
Jan. 2023, Michelle and Peter Wong.
81-92 cm. Similar to Great Cormorant but differs in the following respects: more obvious gape line, the rear of which reaches to a V-shaped point of the bare yellow skin behind the bill (on Great Cormorant the rear of this bare skin is a vertical line); more extensive and deeper yellow lores; bare skin encircles the eye obviously, if narrowly, where it forms a near vertical line. Occurs in marine areas usually with rocky coastlines and not in estuarine waters.
Jan. 2023, Michelle and Peter Wong.
Immatures retain extensively white underparts much later in the winter than Great Cormorant and usually have a yellow tone to the lower mandible.
Adults have deep green tinge to flight feathers, upperwing coverts and mantle, larger white facial patch but less extensive gular pouch that does not extend below bill.
VOCALISATIONS
Usually silent away from breeding colonies (Orta et al. 2020).
DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE
All records have occurred in marine coastal waters of southern and eastern HK.
OCCURRENCE
A rare winter visitor, with one summer record.
2005: an immature on Po Toi during 17-22 April (Cheung 2010).
2007: first-year on Po Toi on 4th and 18 January.
2009: first-year at Stanley on 10 April.
2012: one at Long Ke, Sai Kung East Country Park on 5 February.
2015: two at Shek O from 19 December 2015 to 7 January 2016.
2017: one at The Ninepins on 24 June.
BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET
No observations.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Monotypic. Breeds on rocky islands or coastal cliffs in Russian Far East, Japan and the northern part of the Yellow Sea; winters in coastal waters as far south as northern Taiwan on a regular basis (Orta et al. 2020). In China locally common off the coast of Liaoning, Shandong and Jiangsu (Liu and Chen 2020).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend unknown.
Cheung, H. F. (2010). Japanese Cormorant Phalacrocorax capillatus on Po Toi Island. The first Hong Kong record. Hong Kong Bird Report 2005-06: 177-179.
Liu, Y. and Y. H. Chen (eds) (2020). The CNG Field Guide to the Birds of China (in Chinese). Hunan Science and Technology Publication House, Changsha.
Orta, J., F. Jutglar, G. M. Kirwan, and P. F. D. Boesman (2020). Japanese Cormorant (Phalacrocorax capillatus), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.japcor1.01
