ID Help Please: Cormorant or Shag? More photos added

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Rich
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I've always wanted to ask this question :p

Just been out to my local reservoir (Linacre, Chesterfield) and i'm having difficulty working out exactly what it is, i initially though Cormorant, but on closer inspection the cheek colour appears wrong, as does the eye colour, most Cormorants i have seen have dark coloured eyes, not yellow

But chatting to the local dog walkers there seems to have been quite a few photographers about recently, which again leads me to think it's something a bit more obscure

Excuse the noise, this is just a very quick edit to get an ID before i sift through the whole set

DSC_1002.jpg

EDIT:
More photos added below
 
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Shag.
 

The European shag or common shag is a species of cormorant. It breeds around

the rocky coasts of western and southern Europe, southwest Asia and north Africa,
mainly wintering in its breeding range except for the northernmost birds. Wiki.

this is an adult male
shag.jpg
 
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Ahh cheers, do you think it's a juvenile Shag?

Yeh, I'd go for a first winter juvenile. The angle of the forehead is the give away for me. The Shag's is a lot more raised and pronounced than the Cormorants which has a gentler slope. The lighter brown hue of the feathers as well indicates Shag.
 
Yeh, I'd go for a first winter juvenile. The angle of the forehead is the give away for me. The Shag's is a lot more raised and pronounced than the Cormorants which has a gentler slope. The lighter brown hue of the feathers as well indicates Shag.

Nice one cheers, every day is a school day ;)
 
It is quite unusual to see them that far in land. I had to google Chesterfield to see where it was tho:D. I though it was in Essex.
 
Haha, yes it is indeed unusual, i guess as they are all juveniles they must have taken a wrong turn or something, as we are pretty much as inland as you can get

But we have had our fair share of the unusual up here recently, we had a Crag Martin here the other month (may even still be here, i'm not too sure), it's only the 10th time one has been spotted in the UK
 
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