Birds Of A Feather: Three Mid-Sized Black Birds We See Locally

By Bob Graham

Continuing on from my past articles featuring the look alike birds of San Miguel, I suggest now that we next turn to three mid sized, black birds we see in the waters locally.   That being the case, lets start with Neotropic Cormorants !  The best way to see them is kayaking on the Presa Allende with the Amigos De La Presa, an Audubon de México program.  For information on their paddle times and cost, check their web page.   

Neotropic Cormorants nest throughout the year, but often the best time to see them in the largest numbers is in the spring months.  Interestingly, although these birds nest in these huge colonies, they are actually monogamous. From a distance, one of the things you will notice first is the noise. Adult Neotropic Cormorant’s vocalization is made up of pig like grunts.  Because of this, English names for them include “Pig Duck or Oinking Duck,” while in México, they are often called “Pato Cerdo, Pato Puerco, and Pato Gruñón”.  To me, though I have not heard others say this, the young sound like a colony of gulls.

Those of us from northern parts of North America are more familiar with Double-crested Cormorants.  Neotropic Cormorants differ from them in that they are smaller and thinner with elongated necks, smaller heads and longer tails.  Also, in Neotropic Cormorants, the orange throat patch at the base of the bill is delineated by a thin white line which in breeding plumage, as my photo shows, forms a distinctive “V” shape.  One other trait of Neotropic Cormorants that distinguishes them from all other cormorants is by the way they dive from less than a meter into the water to capture small fish.

Next, lets move on to a bird that is often mistaken as a duck, the American Coot. American Coots are a gregarious bird  found throughout North America, often in large flocks called Covers or Rafts. The more northern Coots are migratory, leaving their summer nesting grounds in favour of warmer climes afforded by the South Eastern States.  Our local populations and those of the US West Coast and Southern States are, however, year-round residents. Both male and female Coots are similar and like our previous species, are monogamous. Coots feed primarily on algae (their favourite food) but will not pass up small aquatic animals and other plant material when available. Coots prefer freshwater and swim in a variety of patterns, that is, in single file lines, high density synchronized swimming and rotational circles. To take off, they run along the water.

Coots appear to be mostly dark grey with a black head.  What stands out though, is their large white bill and white frontal shield.  Also, they often have a reddish-brown spot (called a callus) near the top of the bill between the eyes. One other distinguishing feature are the  broad white lines on their pointed tails.  Coot’s noisy cackling and bobbing, awkward movements made some think of people acting foolishly and showing signs of madness.  In turn, this led people to call individuals displaying these characteristics “Crazy as a Coot”, or an “Old Coot”.

The final bird, with a similar look as the other two and living in the same kind of aquatic habitat, is the Least Grebe. As the name implies, Least Grebes are small.  In fact, they are by far, the smallest grebe in the world! Some guides describe them as being only slightly larger than an American Robin.  Like the other two species we have looked at, Least Grebes are mostly black.  The only colours that really stand out on them are their striking, bright, yellow eyes and fluffy, white bum.  Surprisingly, when I looked up a number of supposedly up to date range maps for this bird, they do not show them as being a resident here!

However, if you head up to the Charco del Ingenio, not only will you see Least Grebes, but you will find them nesting there!  Anyway, there they are, and seemingly happy to be so.  After all, why would they not be. The Charco, with its large presa, seems the perfect habitat for them. Least Grebes are excellent swimmers with feet that are not webbed like ducks, but rather they have broad, flat lobed paddles perfectly designed to propel them rapidly through the water in search of small fish and insects.  Even their young can swim soon after they are hatched, only returning to their nest of decaying vegetation for their first two weeks to rest and sleep.

One day at the Charco, I came on two Least Grebes swimming in a small bay. The cardinal rule of nature photography is not to disturb your subject matter in any way! To that end then, I began filming these two Grebes using my longest telephoto lens.  The birds, being either unaware of me or unperturbed by my presence, swam towards me.  At one point, one of them came so close that I had to back up in order to fit its tiny image into the photo frame, creating the image you see.