Great Cormorant

At Srirangapatna near Mysore is a place called Sangama, where the river Cauvery which had split into two branches a few kilometers earlier meet again. These Large Cormorants were photographed there.
In one of my earlier Posts I had featured a Juvenile Great Cormorant, this time I managed to get a grownup bird. This is a widly distributed species of Cormorant and it's range is so wide that, yesterday I saw this Bird at Hyde Park, in London (I'm on a months holiday here) and was presently surprised to see the same. The british here call it the European Cormorant and seemed to be well adapted to the Cold english weather.
These Cormorants are used by Chinese fishermen (Even some Japanese and Macedonian) to do what is called Cormorant Fishing. The neck of a trained Cormorant is tied with a string, such that it cannot swallow big fish ( it can however swallow smaller fishes) and the cormorant returns back to the Fisherman with the fish stuck in its throat and the fisherman has the bird spit the fish out. The practice is today not done on a commercial scale like before but only done to amuse tourist.
Camera : Sony A-350 , 200mm , f/4.5

Great Cormorant

In one of my previous posts, I had posted a pictue of Little cormorant; this one is a bigger cousin of the same and called Great Cormorant. The photographed bird is a Juvenile; once they grow up they acquire the glossy black colour and a yellow gular pouch. The black plumage is acquired after the age of 4 years. Like its little cousin, this bird too fishes by diving and swimming under water chasing fish. During courting, they engage in a cute little dance and is a great pleasure to watch.

As and when I get the opportunity I will post the photograph of a adult Cormorant.

Little Cormorant

The Cormorant is a glistening black bird with a longish stiff tail. Generally found around inland and brackish water, living on fish. The 3rd and the 4th photograph show the bird attracting the fish by splashing water. Once it spots a fish, it then chases it and captures it under water, being an expert diver and submarine swimmer. The bird stays underwater for at least 10 -15 secs. When satiated, the bird perches itself on a rock or tree and dries its wings by opening them to the sun ( 1st photograph).
Please comment on the photographs.

Indian Cormorants

Two 'Indian Cormorants' Photographed on the banks of Nethravathi river. I was in a dilemma when taking this picture, the water background was very bright and the subjects under lit. If i Increased the exposure time it would have over exposed the water surface, killing any details that were present, if I reduced the exposure then it would have killed the details on the birds.
Well since I did not have much time to keep adjusting the shutter speed, I opted for the most under used feature of today's cameras, taking a series of photographs with increasing Exposure values. I selected Pattern metering and the camera took a series of photographs, with a increment of 0.3 EV. The underexposed photographs turned out better than the correctly exposed ones.
P.S. : I had Initially identified these birds are Little Cormorants. Thanks to Prasanth Narayanan for pointing it out as Indian Cormorants.