Hello and welcome. This is the Science of Birds.

I am your host, Ivan Philipson. The Science of Birds podcast is a lighthearted exploration of bird biology for lifelong learners.

This is episode 99.

Today, we're talking about cormorants and shags.

These are all the birds in the avian family, fallacrow coracity. Let me say that again,

a little slower this time. Falakro coracity. The word begins with pH. I know it's sort of a

tongue twister, and honestly it's taken me a while to get used to it. Hopefully, you'll be used to it too by the end of this episode.

These are sleek, dark, hook-build birds that stand on seaside cliffs

atop wharf pilings or among the branches of wetland trees in many locations around the world.

Most of us are very familiar with the silhouette of a cormorant or shag,

especially when they spread their wings to dry while perched.

When I announced on social media that I was doing a podcast episode on cormorants and shags,

I was pleasantly surprised at the outpouring of enthusiasm from my listeners.

It turns out there's a lot of cormorant love out there. And these birds need all the love they can get.

Cormorants and shags have been vilified and persecuted by one culture or another, off and on, for thousands of years.

For example, the Queen of England in the late 1500s, Elizabeth I, put out a bounty on

cormorants. She called the birds Pests of the Crown. In John Milton's epic poem, Paradise Lost, published in 1667, there's a passage

that reads, quote, Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life, the middle tree and highest there

that grew, sat like a cormorant, end quote. And who was he, none other than Satan himself?

Milton had the devil taking the form of a cormorant, not so great for Cormorant public relations.

On the other hand, some historical figures have actually admired cormorants and shags.

Elizabeth I's successors, King James and then King Charles, had some captive cormorants that were trained to catch fish.

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