Pelagic Cormorants - Photo: Bob Boekelheide
The Pelagic Cormorants of Port Angeles Harbor
by Bob Boekelheide
Pelagic Cormorants are the smallest of the three cormorant species nesting in Washington. Renowned as cliff-nesters, Pelagic Cormorants place their nests on narrow ledges of rocky cliff-faces, even inside sea caves. Their natural nesting habitat around the north Pacific Ocean is steep sea stacks and headland cliffs, where their nest placement hopefully keeps them safe from predators approaching from land and the sky.
Pelagic Cormorants showing their classic silhouette of thin heads not much wider than their necks, as well as thin dark bills and iridescent plumage. Photo: Bob Boekelheide
It doesn’t always work. Pelagic Cormorants formerly nested on the precipitous cliffs on the north side of Protection Island, but they apparently abandoned those nests in the last 15 years or so because of Bald Eagle flights and attacks during the nesting season. The return of Bald Eagles, following their recovery from eggshell thinning caused by DDT, has wreaked havoc for Protection Island birds, leading to nest colony abandonment not only by Pelagic Cormorants, but also by their larger cousins, Double-crested Cormorants. The nesting Glaucous-winged Gull population has been markedly reduced by eagle predation. Our high count of Bald Eagles on Protection Island, as part of offshore surveys within the Protection Island Aquatic Reserve, was 77 eagles on July 10, 2020. The main prey for all those eagles is clearly the nesting seabirds using the island.
Pelagic Cormorants also use human structures for nesting, perhaps in areas where eagle harassment is not so prevalent. They sometimes place their nests on human structures that mimic coastal cliffs, such as girders and pilings that make up towers and bridge supports. Such is the case in Bremerton, where 12 years ago Gene Bullock of the Kitsap Audubon Society wrote that Pelagic Cormorants nesting on the Warren Avenue bridge made up the largest nesting colony in Washington State. The most recent high-count I can find for the Warren Avenue bridge during the nesting season was 300 Pelagic Cormorants tallied in eBird during July 2020.
Pelagic Cormorants nest in Port Angeles harbor as well, also on human-made structures. Next time you are in Port Angeles, take a look for the big blue crane just west of the Boat Haven (see photos). I believe the structure was once used as a wood-chip hopper to load ships in the harbor, but it doesn’t look like it has operated for quite some time. Also, take a walk on the trail to Ediz Hook through the McKinley paper mill and look for a ramshackle wooden structure on pilings inside the harbor. Both the big blue hopper and the wooden structure are now surrogate nesting cliffs for Pelagic Cormorants, supporting many nests each year (see photos).
The blue chip-hopper in Port Angeles harbor, used by Pelagic Cormorants for nesting. Photo: Bob Boekelheide
The “ramshackle” building on pilings by the McKinley mill, covered in Pelagic Cormorant nests. Photo: Bob Boekelheide
For the last five years, I’ve tried to estimate the number of Pelagic Cormorant nests on these two structures at the peak of the nesting season, about the time when young chicks begin to hatch and their little snake-heads appear in their nests. The number of nests has been fairly consistent for the whole five years, numbering at least 150 to 180 nests each year, which suggests a nesting population of at least 300 to 360 birds. I say “at least” because it’s difficult to see cormorants in the dark shadows of the wooden structure by the mill, so there are undoubtedly nests in the shadows I can’t see. The nesting population is likely even larger, perhaps as many as 400 birds.
Closeup views of Pelagic Cormorants nesting on the ramshackle building on pilings by the McKinley mill. Not only do cormorants nest on the upper deck, but also on the joists and lower deck underneath, hidden in the dark shadows. Photo: Bob Boekelheide
The blue chip-hopper had over 80 cormorant nests each year between 2021 and 2024, but this year that number mysteriously decreased to 49. Have eagles discovered the blue chip-hopper? I’ve watched an eagle fly over the hopper and create an alarm response from the cormorants, causing roosting birds to fly. Fortunately, the nesting cormorants did not budge, and the eagle kept going. The nesting cormorants did a lot of frantic head bowing and looking around, but they did not fly.
Pelagic Cormorants nesting on the blue chip-hopper. Notice the large chicks sitting up in the nest in the middle of the photo. Photo: Bob Boekelheide
My highest Pelagic Cormorant count in Port Angeles harbor, which includes both birds at nests as well as those roosting nearby, was 460 birds in July 2022. This year my high count was 333. The apparent decline might look dire, but these numbers also include immature pre-breeders and non-breeders that hang around the colony depending upon the time of day and feeding opportunities nearby. The number of well-built occupied nests, the most important measure of breeding effort, has been quite consistent, leading me to think that this colony in Port Angeles harbor is not only the largest nesting colony on the north Olympic Peninsula, but it likely competes with the Warren Avenue Bridge in Bremerton and other sites in Washington as the largest Pelagic Cormorant colony in the state.
The future of the Port Angeles nesting colony does not look good. The ramshackle building on pilings, possibly part of an old pier, is in bad repair and falling down. The blue chip-hopper also looks like it is past its prime, likely destined for removal by clean-up projects in the harbor. Hopefully its removal will occur outside the nesting season, not when birds are on their nests. Where will the cormorants go when these structures are gone? Good question.
What about Pelagic Cormorants in Dungeness Bay? Pelagic Cormorants don’t nest in Dungeness Bay because there are no nesting cliffs, but they do roost in the bay. How do their numbers vary during the year?
The best data we have comes from 2014 to 2018, when OPAS volunteers counted Pelagic Cormorants and other birds as part of the Three Crabs Restoration Project (Figure 1). The graph clearly shows that the highest numbers of Pelagic Cormorants occurred in Dungeness Bay after the nesting season, between July and November. The lowest months of the year were during the peak of the nesting season in May and June, undoubtedly because the birds were somewhere else for nesting.
There is one caveat to these data. Nearly all these cormorants were counted while they roosted on the old Three Crabs Pier, which was dismantled in fall 2018 as part of the Three Crabs Restoration Project. The pilings were injected with creosote, so they had to go. When the pier came down both Pelagic and Double-crested Cormorants lost their roosting habitat; ever since the number of Pelagic Cormorants using Dungeness Bay has declined. They really liked that old pier, even huddling at one end while the destruction crew dismantled the pier at the other end.
Cormorants perched on the old pier at Three Crabs. All the cormorants in this photo appear to be Double-crested Cormorants, but Pelagic Cormorants often joined them on the old pier. Photo: Bob Boekelheide
Removal of the Three Crabs pier in October 2018. Notice the cormorants are still perched on the pier pilings, even with the removal barge nearby. Cormorants also roost on the four pilings to the left of the lighthouse, which they still use to this day. Photo: Bob Boekelheide
Pelagic Cormorants are an important species of both the north Olympic Peninsula and the north Pacific Ocean. Take a jaunt to Port Angeles harbor any time of the year to closely watch the cormorants at work and play. Their show really gets underway in the spring, particularly in April, when they hopefully will start the nesting cycle all over again on the blue chip-hopper and the ramshackle building by the mill. The grand finale comes from June to August, when their snake-head chicks grow and fledge from their “cliff-side” nests.