Cormorants of Transcarpathia

The first thing that comes to mind for the average Ukrainian man in the street when reading the title of the article, is that the further story, apparently in a negative light, will be referred to some residents of the Transcarpathian region. This is because the word “cormorant”, which is pronounced in Russian and Ukrainian languages like “baklan”, is quite commonly used with the negative meaning. More and more often I hear this word in the evening in dark corners of Uzhgorod yards. May be, partly, the fame of this word is well-deserved. It is known that cormorants, which are mainly sea birds, “have a bulimia disease”, if translated into the human language. They eat constantly. Not waiting enough time to swallow the fish, the cormorant is again looking for a prey. Even in cormorants’ excrements it is always possible to find the remnants of undigested food. I’ve read much about cormorants once, having returned from the Black Sea, where I spent some time on the sand searching for a great shot to take pictures of this bird. In some of the articles the tangible refutation of the fact that cormorants suffer "bulimia" were cited. The main purpose was such that in places where there is really a lot of food, cormorants can behave this way, but if the quantity of available prey is not so big, they calmly eat nearly 400 grams of fish per day and feel totally comfortable.

The reason why I’m telling this whole story is the following. Flipping through the archives of old newspapers to find information to my interest, I, by chance, came across a tiny little note telling that in Transcarpathia, near the village Getynia of the Vynohradiv area the wintering flock of cormorants were observed on the river Tisa. Moreover, they have been spending "winter" there for already several years. The article was short, and one of the paragraphs was dedicated to the description of the harm the cormorants make (according to some experts) to fish in the places of their living. It’s fantastic! In Transcarpathia in one single place the cormorants have once appeared, and people have already set the alarm – that they are a threat to fish in the Tisa river.

There are about 40 varieties of these birds, by the way. They refer to the Pelecaniformes. The cormorants can be of completely different colors. From the classic "black" on the seas, to the grey and totally white birds. Most of them live in the seas or in their neighborhoods, but some are lodging in Europe and Asia. Cormorants are carnivores. Fish is their main food. However, they never miss mollusks, crustaceans, snakes, frogs and aquatic insects. In a word, they eat everything. They choose the places for wintering so that at least ten years they will return to them. Then, after a "test" period, if everything is well with the place, they can be wintering at this location up to several tens or even hundreds of years. Cormorants build nests in the crowns of tall trees. There can be from 3 to 6 eggs in the clutch. The color of eggs is bluish-green, although in some cases, the color of eggs may be similar to the color of the classic chicken ones (light brown). Eggs are incubated by both parents alternately. Nestlings are fed at first by belching the half-digested fish, and then with the fresh fish, which the parents lay in the throat pouch. The cormorants also bring water for their chicks.

On one pleasant Sunday morning, with the desire to see these birds and with the hope that they have not yet flown away, we went to the village Getynia of the Vinogradiv area, to search. We arrived in the village and traditionally began to ask local people in the center of the village. Also traditionally, most of the village residents did not know what we were talking about. Neither the children and young people, nor the old men and women knew anything. “Let’s speak with hunters and fishermen”, the idea came up. And the idea was right. The first fisherman said that, generally speaking, these “similar to black ducks” cormorants are nesting in the vicinity of the large island between their village and the village Sasovo, which is a few kilometers upstream the river Tisa. And the island is situated closer to Sasovo. Cormorants are only flying somewhere through Getynia. The route was explained to us, and we went off. After reaching the high dam in the village Sasovo we left the car and went to walk around. I saw a hunter with two dogs in the middle of the field and went to talk to him. “Yes, I know what you are talking about,” he said, “it’s been a couple of years since these birds started to fly here”. “May be you can specify the place at least approximately”, I asked. “I'll show you the exact place where they feed and nest”, responded the hunter. I was very pleased to hear this. I listened to his story, at the end of which the hunter said that we wouldn’t be able to get there. The water in the bend is high, so we can’t cross it without boots, and even chemical protection. After saying goodbye to the hunter, we stood for a while to think and then decided not to trust the hunter’s assessment of our abilities. We came on along the route. A lot of snow, sticky clay, sand, and a pile of sediment from all branches and logs surrounded us.



The difficulty of the route was that we not only had to cross one or more channels to reach the main one, but had, thus, to climb over piles of debris, logs and tree roots.

The whole way to the main channel is full of such smaller ones. You can jump through some of them, but the others… We approached to the next channel, assessed its depth, and recalled the words of the hunter.



But, as one Russian saying states, “Tanks are not afraid of dirt”. The brave researchers, like we are, cannot be stopped with one such scour. Shoes off, pants down, all our stuff in our hands, and quickly run across the icy water to the other bank. We got at last to the main channel and the place indicated by a hunter ... and how surprised we were to see there two guys looking for something in the roots of trees, and producing a loud noise.



I was upset, because I immediately realized that these two guys had scared the cormorants. We noticed the traces of large bird limestone droppings on the bank. This fact picked up our mood. We found the place correctly. We stood for a while looking at the Tisa river. But there were no cormorants visible. Only two gray herons and several ducks were flying nearby. And that’s it. The local guys finished searching for something under the roots of trees, and went upstream. By the way, it is possible that they were looking for masonry. The cormorants wintering in this area do not always organize their nests in the trees. It happens that they are nesting in such places like those, where the two local guys foraged. The cormorants lay eggs as soon as they notice that the snow begins to melt and there won’t be any more snow.

Once the boys went up, we went downstream. If they scare a flock of cormorants, the birds will fly in our direction. However, we were moving down the river and trying to find them in our direction. On that day we walked quite a long distance. We were walking through the bends of the river, choosing the smaller ones. Piles of garbage were around. We walked on clay, then the sand, then the deep snow. Again, we saw ducks, hawks, herons, but not any cormorant... After we turned to the opposite direction, we noticed a large black bird, flying down the bed and waving the wings with the average frequency. Exactly as it is described in the determinant. When I saw in the viewfinder the yellow spots on the nose, all doubts were dispelled - it was the cormorant flying. Unfortunately, noticing us, the bird changed the flight path and began to go away. The lens "reached out" to it with a great difficulty. Nevertheless, a few frames are still available.

Here it is, the cormorant. I spent the whole evening trying to determine the subspecies. Yellow patches around the eyes, black feathers on top, a bright spot from the bottom ... I'm 80% sure about the identification of the subspecies.



In the next picture it is possible to see that the beak is hooked at its end. We also observe the border between the yellow spots and the white beak. Bend of the wings, the feathers on the end – everything coincides with the characteristics.



And here the shape of light spots on the chest is clearly seen. I browsed the collection of pics about the cormorants and in the first dozen of birds I found the almost identical bird to the one in my photos.



It turns out that in the villages Getynia and Sasovo we are dealing with the subspecies of “large cormorant”. We photographed one, but according to local hunters and fishermen, with whom we communicated on this day, there is a sufficient quantity of cormorants in this territory. It’s a pity that it was not possible to photograph the flock that day, but I guess this is our first, but not the last visit to these places.

30.03.2010. 14:33

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