The "Endangered" Bank Cormorant will be present at the Stanford Birding Fair next weekend, Friday 28 to Sunday 30 September 

The annual Stanford Birding Fair takes place this coming weekend, from Friday 28 to Sunday 30 September. You can view the programme for the weekend here.

The ADU is making a contribution to the programme. On Saturday afternoon, 15h00, MSc student Corlia Meyer is doing a presentation on her study species, Bank Cormorant. Corlia has done a long winter of observations on the colony that breeds on Robben Island, and has lots of fascinating stories to tell. The Bank Cormorant was the featured species in Threat Thursday recently. This species is fading away into extinction almost unnoticed, with most of the hype been focused on the African Penguin. The IUCN threat status of Bank Cormorants is "Endangered" and the research project that Corlia is part of probably represents one of our last opportunities to gather the information to work out what the problems are, and hopefully devise measures to reverse the decline. Although the Bank Cormorant is not superficially a charismatic or iconic species, it has the most beautiful eye of any bird. The Earth would be a poorer place in which to live if we lost the Bank Cormorant.

We encourage everyone to attend the Fair, and especially Corlia's talk.

A feature of the Fair is a photographic competition, and the link to the 25 finalists is here.

Les Underhill
2012-09-24

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