The double-crested cormorant is a little more than two feet (0.61 m) in length with a wingspan of about four feet (1.2 m).
It has dark brown to black feathers, a long hooked bill with an orange throat pouch, a long tail, and webbed black feet. Adults have tufts of feathers over their eyes.
The double-crested cormorant has bright turquoise-green eyes, and the inside of its mouth can appear bright blue, especially during the breeding season.
Males and females look alike.
The double-crested cormorant dives from the surface of the water for fish and marine invertebrates.
After catching a fish, the cormorant surfaces, flips the fish in the air, and swallows it head-first.
The double-crested cormorant nests in colonies. Both the male and female build a nest of sticks, twigs, and seaweed. Nests are built in trees and shrubs, and on the ground of rocky cliffs and islands.
The female lays 3-5 eggs. Both parents incubate the eggs for about a month. Both parents also feed and take care of the chicks. The chicks fledge (develop flight feathers) in 35-40 days.
The double-crested cormorant has a lifespan of 6-8 years in the wild.
The double-crested cormorant doesn’t have well-developed oil glands, and its feathers don’t have very good waterproofing. It often dries its feathers by perching on a pole, rock, or tree limb and stretching its wings out.
The “double crest” of the double-crested cormorant is made of two small tufts of feathers that appear on adults during the breeding season.
These crests are usually dark—black to dark brown—and are most noticeable when the birds are preparing to mate.
Young cormorants do not have these crests.
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The only nesting colony of double-crested cormorants in New Hampshire is at the Isles of Shoals, although immature birds and non-breeding birds can be seen across the state.
You can sometimes spot them drying out their wings on exposed rocks in the waters off the New Hampshire coast.
The double-crested cormorant is found from the coasts of Alaska and Nova Scotia south to Mexico and the Bahamas.
It winters on both coasts, north to southern Alaska and southern New England.
