Cormorant vs Shag

On a recent trip to Wales, I stumbled across two lovely big black birds catching the sun on a riverside.

Watching them in awe, through my new binoculars (I will post about these later) I could see every detail, even water droplets on their feathers.

A quick flick through my bird identification book (again, I will post about my favourites of these later), narrowed down the pair to either cormorants or shags.

Photo taken using my Sony A500

So, I disappeared into an internet blackhole, and have summarised my understanding of the differences below:

Cormorants: Can be found inland, feathers are black/brown but can have a greenish tinge, white patches on the thigh, bare skin around the eyes, adults have a yellow patch under the throat.

Shags: More numerous, coastal, smaller in body (I guess only useful if the two are side by side), eyes are surrounded by feathers, feathers are black with a greenish tinge, no white parts, tufted crests on the head.

Although not visible in the above picture I took, the other bird had white thigh patches, so this alongside the location I saw the birds and the skin around the eyes, made me pretty sure I had seen a lovely pair of cormorants. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this spot, probably more so because the identification was tricky. 

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