Banding cormorants is very different from banding any other type of birds. Even as hatchlings they are very, very aggressive. The birds have a long bill with a hook at the end, ideal for fishing underwater. Also very ideal for a defense of poking someone's eye out if they get too close. I found that birds of all ages would scream and flail towards you when approached at the nest. Older birds would try to get to the water with the parents, but when cornered they were lethal weapons. I was warned again and again to keep my face far away from the cormorants. With their long necks and agile bodies they could very easily swing around and poke out your eye. Even with all the warnings, it still took a near miss with a young bird while I banded to get the point across that I needed to keep my distance.

The easiest and safest way to band the birds was to grab the leg and hold them upside down while you place the band on in six seconds. This made it more difficult for the bird to be able to reach your face and if you were wearing pants, they would grab a hold of that with their bill while you applied the band.

We banded all we could on the second island and head for the third which had more cormorants. The young birds saw us approach and jockeyed for positions near the shore of the island to make it into the water. We had boats land on four sides of the island to keep the birds from going in. This was the trickiest part yet, because this island was loaded with piles of high loose rocks and tucked in those rocks were young ring-billed gulls.

This island also had a small colony of Forster's terns nesting in the rocks as well.