Cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo

Two different populations of Cormorants are found in Sweden. A rapidly increasing population of P. carbo sinensis breeds in the southern part of Sweden in the east coast archipelagos north to Södermanland and also on a number of lakes in inland south Sweden. After a steep increase during the last few years this population now amounts to about 16000 pairs. In addition to this Cormorants of the race P. carbo carbo migrates to Sweden during autumn and winters along the coasts of south Sweden. Whereas the breeding population is largely migratory a proportion of the sinensis Cormorants remain in the country during the winter. Large numbers of Cormorants are found on the west coast both in September (mainly sinensis) and January both in the archipelagos and along the open coasts of southern Halland and Scania. Cormorants are also found on the east coast, mainly in the archipelagos but they are here mostly found on the outer skerries and are not so easily covered.

At the countrywide surveys in 2004 and 2015 the wintering population was estimated to be around 12000 and 14000 Cormorants, respectively. The species was well distributed along the coasts of southern Sweden at the survey in 2015. On the other hand much smaller numbers were found in the east coast archipelagos 2015 compared to 2004.

Both september and january indices showed significantly increases in the longterm indices. The increase in January indixes was 6.8% per year, whereas the increase for September indices was 4.6%.

In recent years a very large wintering flock has been detected in the Öresund, counting more than 10,000 Cormorants on some occassions. These birds are however not seem from the shore except on special occassionsand on special places and are not covered in the annual counts. The low level in the indices may be due to changed habits of Cormorants as there has been a very drastic increase in the overall numbers of the species in Sweden.

 

Cormorant January 2015

  

 

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