What is it from New brunswick, Canada?

[Richard Poulin]

My brother-in-law took this picture of a duck sized bird as it took off from a small pool on the upper Miramachi River. The photo was taken in June this year.

The id should be obvious but for the life of me I can not figure it out.

[Richard Poulin]

Anybody? Anything?

[AndyB]

Hi Richard, is this a cormorant taking off and flying away from camera? It's quite hard to be certain from the photo what we're looking at but if that is the head and beak in upper right of frame, it does look like a Cormorant beak. Best, Andy

[Graham Etherington]

I'd agree with Andy with cormorant, probably Double-crested.

[Brian S]

I can't believe this is a bird. Are we being messed with?

Brian S

[Colin Key]

I can't believe this is a bird. Are we being messed with?

Brian S

Nah, surely not - pretty obvious to me, a Cormorant with a condom on its head!!

Colin:laugh:

[Richard Poulin]

This is a legitimate photo although it is a poor image and scan and the size allowed on this site make it difficult to see detail.

While my brother-in-law is relatively new at birding he does have some experience. I asked him if he thought the bird was a cormorant as they are fairly common on the St. John River but he said it did not look like a cormorant to him. Unfortunately he reached for his camera before his binoculars in this case.

While I agree the most likely conclusion is cormorant but there is just something about the bird/photo that bothers me. I was wondering if I was missing something.

[Colin Key]

................although it is a poor image and scan and the size allowed on this site make it difficult to see detail.



Richard,

If you have a larger image (in terms of both image dimensions and file size) then please try and post it as an embedded URL for which there is no size restriction.

Colin

[Richard Poulin]

Here is the entire photo as scaned into my computer.

I hope this works.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v486/Buckstopper/Joe.jpg

[Colin Key]

I cannot honestly do anything to improve resolution on this Richard, but at least this shot does show that it is a bird! I think that the apparently blunt tip to the bill is just down to the angle of the shot, and the bare parts around the base of the bill would suggest some species of Cormorant, but I don't think we can get any further on the basis of this photograph.

Colin :err:

[Joe stockwell]

i thaught it was a tree, i could see anything on the first photo