Pelagic Cormorant nests

While doing some searching about bridge-nesting cormorants, I happened across Geezer’s Blind, a guy who documented some of the nests under the Granville Street Bridge back in 2015-2017.

A few weeks back, I caught at least half-a-dozen Pelagic Cormorants gleaning vegetation from rooftops by the Granville Street Bridge. I knew they were nesting under there, but only after visiting the above blog did I realize that I could obviously see them from Granville Island.

So last Sunday I took a detour from my regular gull nest route and got my first glimpse of the nests. I spotted approximately ten nests, but there are certainly more – to my uninitiated eye I don’t quite know how to look at the scene.

I took some photos, but was not really happy with any of them. Between the angles and the netting installed under the bridge, I couldn’t find a good line of sight.

But if you’re around Granville Island here in Vancouver, I encourage you to go watch the birds yourself. Here’s the location.

I suspect I’ll be back there this weekend to learn how to see them and attempt to get some better photos.

Something I’ll warn you about if you are planning to go: the netting the city has installed to deter nesting ends up catching some birds. I saw at least a dozen dead birds, all pigeons and cormorants (I think), in various states of decay in the nets. A horrible way for a sentient being to die.

Finally, here’s an article from February about the cormorants nesting under the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge (aka Second Narrows).