Our San Diego's Pacific Rocky Shores Trip (San Diego Bird Festival) took us to the La Jolla area along Coast Boulevard on Friday, March 6, 2009. We saw numerous Brandt's Cormorants (Phalacrocorax penicillatus) roosting and nesting along the craggy shores. This is an interesting species because of its social habits and its physical characteristics. Males and females are similar with long, hooked bills, long tails, long, thin necks and a gular region that is blue with yellowish lower border (see photograph of preening birds) during breeding. Brandt's Cormorants often perch with their wings spread in order to dry them. It was a partly cloudy morning with temperatures in the mid-60's.