Just in Frame: A Reed Cormorant, Five Years Apart
Just in Frame: Reed Cormorant Photography & Conservation
A 2021 Reed Cormorant photograph in Table Bay fog becomes a 2026 exploration of bird photography, autofocus, fish availability and conservation. |
| Reed Cormorant in Flight : Table Bay Nature Reserve |
VCP Field Observation & Conservation Context This article combines first-hand photographic observation with independently sourced conservation information. The Reed Cormorant photograph was made by Vernon Chalmers at Table Bay Nature Reserve, Cape Town, n 2021 using a Canon EOS 7D Mark II and EF 400mm f/5.6L USM. The account of the fog, fleeting light, close-range encounter, bird behaviour and autofocus response is based on the photographer's original field experience and photographic archive.
The conservation context has been researched separately using published information from BirdLife South Africa, SANCCOB and South Africa's Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE). BirdLife South Africa documents the Cormorant's Endangered status and its relationship with sardine and anchovy availability, while SANCCOB provides first-hand conservation and rehabilitation information concerning recent Cape Cormorant abandonment and starvation events. DFFE's 2026 reporting is used for the current sardine-mortality investigation and its stated uncertainties. (BirdLife South Africa)
Photographic observations and conservation evidence are deliberately distinguished throughout this article. The 2021 photograph is a first-hand field record; interpretation of the wider ecological context is based on the cited conservation and scientific sources.
Key Details & Biological Context
The Reed Cormorant (Microcarbo africanus), also known as the long-tailed cormorant, is heavily featured in South African birding circles. Photographic case studies of the species often highlight its distinct behaviors:- Lack of Waterproofing: Unlike many aquatic birds, the Reed Cormorant lacks an oil-producing preen gland. Its feathers become completely waterlogged when diving.
- The "Hang Dry" Pose: Because of its waterlogged feathers, it reduces its natural buoyancy to easily dive 5–6 meters down for fish. However, it must spend significant time perched with its wings spread wide to dry in the sun afterwards.
- Appearance: It features jet-black plumage, a pale or yellow hooked beak, reddish facial skin, and distinctive bright red eyes
Reed Cormorant Photography Cape Town
Just in Frame
In 2021, I walked into Table Bay Nature Reserve in what initially appeared to be reasonable conditions.
I was carrying a Canon EOS 7D Mark II with the EF 400mm f/5.6L USM, one of my established combinations for bird-in-flight photography.
Then the fog arrived.
It descended heavily and suddenly. Visibility deteriorated to the point where there was very little to see in front of me. I had only just arrived and was already approaching the point at which I would normally begin my return.
Instead, I decided to stay.
Partly, this was simply curiosity:
Could the EOS 7D Mark II and EF 400mm f/5.6L USM actually deliver in these conditions?
For quite some time, nothing happened.
Then everything changed almost simultaneously.
There was a brief glimpse of sunlight through the fog, almost aligned with the eventual moment of capture.
And then a Reed Cormorant suddenly appeared.
It was extraordinarily close—almost inside the minimum focusing distance of the 400mm lens.
There was no time for considered composition.
I reacted instinctively.
The autofocus reacted instantly.
And the cormorant reacted too.
It had seen me.
The bird was beginning to bank to the left, visible in the changing angle of its wing. At that distance, with a moving subject and severely restricted visibility, there was virtually no framing margin.
It was JIF — Just in Frame.
And it remains the closest image I have of a Cape Cormorant in flight.
I still have a certain sense of awe when I look at it.
Not least because I remember how poor the conditions actually were.
A photograph that waited
At the time, this was primarily a photographic encounter.
I wanted to know what the camera and lens combination could do in difficult conditions. The fog provided an unexpected field laboratory.
The photograph was the result.
Five years later, however, I encountered a very different reason to look at it again.
A recent Milnerton TygerBurger article drew attention to pressure on SANCCOB arising from fish availability and seabird conservation. I was immediately reminded of this photograph.
The bird had not changed.
The photograph had not changed.
But the context had.
The Cape Cormorant is currently classified as Endangered in the regional BirdLife South Africa assessment. BirdLife documents a strong historical association between Cape Cormorant breeding numbers and the availability of sardine and anchovy, while emaciation was the major cause recorded among Cape Cormorants submitted to SANCCOB during the assessment period. BirdLife South Africa
Suddenly, the old photograph became a reason to ask a new question:
What does the bird inside this frame depend upon outside it?
The food beneath the photograph
A Cape Cormorant in flight is immediately visible to a photographer.
The marine food system that supports it is not.
Cape Cormorants depend heavily on small pelagic fish, particularly anchovy and sardine. BirdLife South Africa notes that historical breeding trends have been linked to the availability of these species, while also highlighting substantial overlap between the sizes of fish consumed by Cape Cormorants and those harvested by South Africa's purse-seine fishery. BirdLife South Africa
SANCCOB has encountered the consequences of poor food availability directly.
In January 2021, more than 1,700 Cape Cormorant chicks eventually came into SANCCOB's care following mass abandonment events on Robben Island and elsewhere. SANCCOB's research team identified lack of food as a major suspected factor, noting the very low levels of anchovy and sardine at the time. SANCCOB
That makes the year of my photograph particularly interesting.
The photograph was made in 2021.
The same year, Cape Cormorant chicks on Robben Island were experiencing a major conservation intervention.
I knew nothing about that when I pressed the shutter.
I was simply trying to photograph a bird in fog.
The story did not end in 2021
In November 2025, SANCCOB reported another mass abandonment of Cape Cormorant chicks on Robben Island.
Post-mortem examinations of deceased chicks found extreme emaciation, very low fat reserves and markedly reduced muscle mass. SANCCOB concluded that the available evidence pointed to inadequate food availability as the most likely cause, while also identifying dehydration, starvation and parasitic infections among the contributing conditions. SANCCOB
SANCCOB also reported that sardine abundance had remained well below its long-term average for five years, while the 2025 anchovy biomass was the second-lowest recorded since annual biomass surveys began in 1984. SANCCOB
This gives the photograph another layer of meaning.
The cormorant is not merely a bird flying through the Cape Town fog.
It belongs to a marine system in which the availability and distribution of small pelagic fish can have consequences all the way up the food chain.
Then came the 2026 sardine mortality event
The timing of the current discussion is particularly significant because 2026 has brought a major sardine mortality event along the South African coastline.
South Africa's Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment has confirmed pilchard herpesvirus in affected sardines from the Western Cape and Algoa Bay and has identified the virus as the strongest biological factor associated with the event. By 21 September 2026, DFFE reported that no renewed widespread mortality had occurred, although monitoring was continuing. Forestry and Fisheries Dept
This needs to be treated carefully.
It would be too simplistic to say:
2026 sardine mortality → seabird food shortage.
The available evidence does not establish that direct causal chain.
What the evidence does establish is more nuanced:
- Cape Cormorants depend heavily on small pelagic fish.
- Sardine and anchovy availability has been an important factor in seabird population dynamics.
- Poor prey availability has been associated with Cape Cormorant breeding failures and starvation events.
- SANCCOB has documented recent Cape Cormorant rehabilitation associated with inadequate food availability.
- South Africa experienced a significant sardine mortality event in 2026, whose ecological consequences continue to be monitored.
That distinction is important.
Conservation becomes more credible when uncertainty is acknowledged rather than removed.
What the camera could see—and what it could not
Looking at the photograph now, I can see an extraordinary amount of detail.
The eye.
The bill.
The plumage.
The wing position.
The beginning of the bank.
The direction of flight.
The moment of awareness between photographer and bird.
But there is an equally important list of things the photograph cannot show.
It cannot show where the cormorant had been feeding.
It cannot show the fish beneath the surface.
It cannot show the availability of sardine or anchovy.
It cannot show the condition of the wider Benguela marine ecosystem.
The photograph is therefore both highly informative and profoundly incomplete.
And that is one of the fascinating characteristics of nature photography.
A photograph can preserve an extraordinary amount of information about one instant while simultaneously reminding us how little of the larger ecological system we can see.
From autofocus to ecological observation
There is another reason this photograph belongs within the evolution of my photography.
The original encounter was essentially:
OBSERVE → PHOTOGRAPH
But the photograph remained in my archive.
Five years later, another observation provided a reason to return to it.
That changed the process:
OBSERVE → PHOTOGRAPH → IDENTIFY → INVESTIGATE → DOCUMENT → ARCHIVE → INTERPRET
This is the same observational philosophy that has increasingly informed my Maritime Observation System (MOS) work.
The subject is different.
The process is remarkably similar.
With a vessel, I might observe a ship offshore, photograph it, identify the vessel, investigate its movements and document the resulting information.
With the Cape Cormorant, the observation began with a bird emerging from fog.
The investigation leads instead towards species biology, prey availability, seabird populations and conservation.
The photograph becomes the starting point rather than the ending point.
A feel-good conservation story
There is something else I like about this particular photograph.
It is not an image of a distressed bird.
It is not a rescue photograph.
It is not a photograph of starvation.
It is simply a Cape Cormorant flying strongly through fog, caught during an extraordinarily brief convergence of conditions.
That matters.
Conservation photography does not always need to begin with suffering.
Sometimes it can begin with wonder.
The viewer first encounters a beautiful bird.
Then comes the story.
Then comes the question:
What does this bird need in order to continue flying here?
That question takes us from the individual animal to the ecosystem.
Five years apart
I still remember the 2021 encounter very clearly.
The fair conditions when I began the walk.
The sudden arrival of the fog.
The uncertainty about whether there would be anything to photograph.
The decision to stay.
The brief peek of sunlight.
The cormorant appearing almost inside the minimum focusing distance of the 400mm.
The instantaneous reaction.
The autofocus response.
The bird seeing me.
JIF. Just in Frame.
All credit to the camera combination for doing its part when the opportunity suddenly appeared.
But the photograph has now acquired another dimension.
In 2021, I was asking:
Can I photograph a bird in these conditions?
In 2026, I am asking:
What can this photograph tell me about the bird and the environment that sustains it?
That is a very different question.
And yet both questions originate from the same act:
observation.
Sometimes an image waits.
Then, years later, something happens.
You look at it again.
And there is more to see.
Photographic Equipment
Camera: Canon EOS 7D Mark II
Lens: Canon RF 400mm f/5.6L USM Lens
Photographic Genre: Birds / Birds in Fligt
Post Processing: Adobe Lightroom Classic
Location: Table Bay Nature Reserve
