Edutainment > 36 Views of Green Island (14) - Cormorant

Tom Kristensen, born 1962, is a young artist from Australia who works in the tradition of Japanese woodblock prints. On this page he describes his print work 'Cormorant' from the series of '36 Views of Green Island'.

Prints by Tom Kristensen
Green Island - Cormorant
copyright Tom Kristensen

The images on this page are link-sensitive and take you to other articles or web sites in which you might be interested.

Cormorant - No. 14

The Great Cormorant, Phalacrocorax carbo, is the largest and most widespread cormorant in Australia, with a range extending throughout the world. It is often seen perched on the rocks around Green Island, with wings outstretched, catching the heat of the sun.

The cormorant is an excellent swimmer, chasing fish underwater in dives lasting as long as a minute. It's feathers must be dried before the bird can take to the air again. In the sea it sits below the waterline with only the head uptilted and neck visible. It will suddenly bob down and propel itself under the water with large webbed feet, while the wings are held closed. The hooked beak is useful for snaring fish, eels and crustaceans. Sometime later the bird will resurface, often a great distance away.

The Cormorant - a Great Swimmer

Video - Tom Kristensen

Video - Tom Kristensen
Click for Video
copyright protected

The cormorant has been used in China and Japan to catch and retrieve fish, the neck banded to prevent the bird from swallowing the fish. Great Cormorants sometimes fish in formations, driving shoals of fish along while flapping out of the water, leapfrogging each other to dive onto the fish."

Most of the year the birds are solitary and are seen fishing alone. In the breeding season they will gather in noisy colonies of several thousand. The nest is a bulky platform of sticks built in a low tree or on the ground. Both parents build the nest, incubate the eggs and raise the clutch of three or four young.

Tom Kristensen, June 2005
(edited by Dieter Wanczura, updated in October 2009)

Video Presentation of Tom Kristensen

We produced a video with a short presentation of Tom Kristensen. Please click on the image or on the link to go to the video page.

	Web www.artelino.com

The images on this web site are the property of the artist(s) and or the artelino GmbH and/or a third company/institution.  Reproduction, public display and any commercial use of these images, in whole or in part, require the expressed written consent of the artist(s) and/or the artelino GmbH. .