Page:Bird-lore Vol 07.djvu/145



The Cormorants of Great Lake By T. GILBERT PEARSON With photographs from nature by the author HIDDEN among the cypress swamps of eastern North Carolina there lies a beautiful sheet of water known as Great Lake. Roughly esti- mated, it is about five by seven miles in extent, and is the largest of an irregular chain of lakes extending across the counties of Jones and Craven. A heavy forest surrounds it, which for two-thirds the distance is a dense cypress swamp reaching away for miles in its unbroken, primitive condition. There are few human habitations in this territory, and many of the wild tenants of the forest are still found in their original abundance. This sequestered lake is never disturbed by the passing of a boat, except at intervals of a year or more, when some adventurous hunter carries his canoe a long distance through the tangles of the swamps and camps for a brief time upon its shores. Great Lake is the summer abode of the only colony of Florida Cormo- rants known to breed in North Carolina. A strong desire to become more familiar with the habits and activities of these wary birds led me to journey to this region last summer during the early days of June. As our canoe emerged from the heavy growth of cypress trees fringing the lake, we saw, about a mile distant, the whitened trees which compose the rookery. These were adorned with numerous black spots which, upon a closer approach, proved to be Cormorants. The colony at that time was found to be in the height of the breeding season. The heavy nests of sticks and twigs occu- pied low-spreading cypress trees standing solitary here and there in the water, usually from fifty to one hundred yards from shore. A number of the trees were occupied by the domicile of a single pair of birds; others contained two, three, five, seven or eight nests; one tree held sixteen and another thirty-six cradles of these great birds. One hundred and twenty- one homes of the Cormorants were counted, twenty-eight trees in all being used for their accommodation.