Scientific name: Phalacrocorax lucidus
The White-breasted Cormorant (Phalacrocorax lucidus) is much like the widespread Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) and if not a regional variant of the same species, is at least very closely related. It is distinguished from other forms of the great cormorant by its white breast and by the fact that subpopulations are freshwater birds.[1] Phalacrocorax lucidus is not to be confused with the smaller and very different endemic South Australian black-faced cormorant, which also is sometimes called the white-breasted cormorant.
It mainly eats fish, doing most of its foraging 10-200 metres from the shoreline (when foraging at sea), diving in stints of up to about 82 seconds, although considerably less in freshwater. Its jaw is adapted to handling bottom-dwelling slow-moving fish, but it may catch faster fish that live closer to the surface. Smaller fish may be swallowed underwater, but with larger fish it has to take them to shore: in one case a bird died of suffocation after attempting to swallow a large Carp.
