One of these is not like the other ones

Little black cormorants (Phalacrocorax sulcirostris) are equally at home in fresh and salt water. Sometimes groups of a hundred or more gather on the rocks at low tide in Hobsons Bay but this little party was lined up on a cable over the Maribyrnong River at Essendon.

They were keen on grooming. (This one had a length of monofilament around its foot. I only noticed it after I downloaded the photograph.)


A solo little pied cormorant (P. melanoleucos) was hanging out with them.


I keep promising myself that once I get some free time I'll return to painting and drawing. These monochrome birds are just there to be rendered in some beautiful, glossy, green-sheened ink.


(BTW, I've been trying to think of a collective noun for cormorants. The best I can do is a diary of shags.)