Young eats semi-digested foods from parents beak. Fledging occurs at 8 weeks. They chase fish underwater using both their powerful webbed feet and their wings in a sort of breast stroke to propel them through the water. Primarily from the Mississippi eastward. In some of the mid-western states cormorants are listed as endangered or threatened.
Cormorants appear clumsy trying to get airborne after feeding.
They generally always leave the water faced into the wind and use their feet to help them build speed for take off. The longer the runway the more water logged they are. Like the anhinga, cormorants often sit on posts or wires to dry out with their wings outstretched. The children's story Ping is about a Chinese diving duck. Chances are the star of the story was a close relative of our local cormorant.