Cormorants make themselves at home

Even the most observant of readers would miss a oddity in the background of one of my Leslie Street Spit shots (previous post). White-trunked trees, flecked with black.

The black flecks are cormorants; fish-eating birds whose poop kills the trees they use for nests. The white trunks are probably somewhat bleached by the sun, since cormorants use their beaks to strip away bark, but the trees are also painted with a lot of guano.
“30,000 cormorants destroying lakeside park“, reads the headline of a 2009 Toronto Star item. Perhaps, but maybe the birds are just lakeside developers. Highrise living by the lake is popular with our species, too.