Other
European shag
Phalacrocorax aristotelis
Gulosus aristotelis (Linnaeus, 1761) · Phalacrocoracidae WoRMS 1704278
Reference photos
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A slim, all-black diving bird with a green gloss, a narrow bill and a yellow gape; breeding adults raise a conspicuous crest on the crown. It leaps clear of the surface into a pursuit dive and feeds mostly on the seabed, and is easily confused with the larger, heavier-billed cormorant.
Depth
Feeds on the seabed, most dives 7-20 m, exceptionally to about 60 m
Size
Up to about 80 cm long, wingspan 90-105 cm, weight about 1.75-2.25 kg
Habitat
Rocky marine coasts and islands; nests in crevices, under boulders and in caves, and forages inshore over rock, kelp and sand
Behaviour
Leaps clear of the surface into a pursuit dive and feeds at the seabed; forages alone or in flocks of hundreds; perches with wings spread to dry
Diet
I eat
- Almost exclusively small fish, caught by diving and pursuing them underwater; sandeels dominate in many populations, with gadoids such as saithe more important further north
- Bottom-living crabs and other crustaceans, above all the velvet swimming crab, which was the most frequent prey at a Shetland roost outside the breeding season
- Also molluscs, cephalopods and polychaete worms, plus the common sea urchin, which occurred in over a quarter of the samples at one Shetland roost
Eats me
- Introduced American mink, which reach the birds at some nesting colonies
- No other predator is on record. Coastal raptors such as white-tailed eagles, and nest-robbing gulls and corvids, are only suspected, and nesting on steep rocky cliffs prevents some predation
Where you'd find it
Found around most of Britain and Ireland, though less often in the Celtic Sea and the waters west of Ireland.
Sources
Open-access references behind this page. Every statement on this page was read out of one of them; anything that could not be traced to a source was taken off the page rather than left standing. Each link was checked on the date shown, and confirmed then to be about this species.
Phalacrocorax aristotelis (European shag) - Animal Diversity Web species account
Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology
Weblink checked 2026-08-30
Taylor & Francis (Bird Study 71:103-107); copy hosted by the Queen's University Belfast Research Portal (2024)
PaperCC BY-NC-ND 4.0link checked 2026-08-30
Frontiers in Marine Science 9: 852033 (2022)
PaperCC BY 4.0link checked 2026-08-30
University of Liverpool (2018)
Weblink checked 2026-08-30
European shag (Gulosus aristotelis)
Marine Life Information Network, Marine Biological Association of the UK
MarLINlink checked 2026-08-30
Gulosus aristotelis (Linnaeus, 1761)
World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS Editorial Board)
TaxonomyCC BY 4.0link checked 2026-08-30
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