Two days ago I was so pleased that I had discovered a shag and cormorant together. Today I have to revise that opinion. They were both cormorants - the one I thought was a shag was simply a young cormorant. As Alexander Pope put it "to err is human, to forgive divine." Forgive me, it was not a deliberate attempt to mislead. The photograph below clinches it. I sought further evidence afterwards and found it.
Having got a closer view of the young cormorant I am now convinced that the two birds are the same type and this youngster is starting to get the white bib of an adult. Publishing before doing further research is almost as bad a mistake as my trusting Poroshenko to bring peace to Ukraine. Let me hope there are not too many more of these human peccadillos to come. But I have reached that age where I can blame every one of my human frailties on having reached that age.
It is a wonder there are any fish left in the lake. Just beyond the young cormorant was an old heron. It's reflection can be seen in this photo.
In mitigation for my identification mistake I have to say that the two small bird books I have are not very helpful. "The shag differs from the cormorant in its smaller size and the lack of a white chin and thighs" and "lacks white patches of Cormorant but has yellow gape." It was only when I came across this in-depth article that my suspicion from today's photos was confirmed.
As well as the heron and cormorant there was also this fellow, the great crested grebe, taking his fill.
The scavenging gulls will take some smaller fish as will the
kingfishers. In the end though there's not much left for this fellow
when the birds have raided the larder.
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