The Pygmy Cormorant is a small cormorant that uses freshwater wetlands and river deltas.
It has a small body, a short bill, and a stubby neck. Adults have dark plumage with a bronzy-green gloss in summer. Winter adults and juveniles have a white throat and a paler breast.
The Pygmy Cormorant is a small cormorant found around wetlands in Europe and western Asia. From 2010 to 2020, Dan Traian Ionescu and colleagues surveyed breeding waterbirds at two artificial wetland areas in southeastern Transylvania, Romania. Pygmy Cormorants nested in mixed colonies with other species and used wetland shrubs as nest sites.
At the study sites, nests were built in grey willow. The researchers estimated 5–15 breeding pairs per year over the decade, with no statistically significant trend during the study period. The survey documented artificial ponds and fishponds as breeding habitats for colonial waterbirds, including willow shrubs used by Pygmy Cormorants.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
At two central Romanian artificial wetlands, the study estimated 5–15 Pygmy Cormorant pairs per year and recorded nests in grey willow.