When Do Pygmy Cormorants Nest on Skadar Lake?

Where do they nest?

In willow at Crni Žar and Pančeva Oka, on the northern side of the lake, not in the river canyon at Rijeka Crnojevića. The park's bird page names three special nature reserves: Pančeva Oka, Manastirska tapija, and Crni Žar. On that page the bird is mali kormoran. The current scientific name is Microcarbo pygmaeus. Older papers still use Phalacrocorax pygmeus.

Crni Žar is a peat island. The park says the peat is about ten metres thick and shows at the surface when the water is low, with reed, water lily, kasaronja, and willow growing out of it. Kasaronja is water chestnut. The lily guide separates that plant from the white flowers. The nests are in the willow thickets. Nesting there begins at the end of May and in June. As the water drops, the plants thicken, and the park calls the spot practically inaccessible. The same page describes the Crni Žar gathering as the second largest pygmy cormorant colony in the world. That is the park's wording, not a count from this year.

Pančeva Oka is the other reserve the park lists for this bird, in a mixed colony with great cormorants, Dalmatian pelicans, squacco herons, little egrets, and grey herons. The park also says pygmy cormorants once nested in numbers at Manastirska tapija, at the mouth of the Morača, and were pushed out in the 1970s. A September 2009 survey for WWF, by Darko Saveljić, put breeding from the beginning of April until June, with nests in alder and willow. It said the colony moved, on average every third year, between Pančeva Oka and Crni Žar, and it tied those moves to disturbance by tourists, fires set in the reed, and disturbance by fishermen. Use the park page for where the colonies are named now, and the 2009 survey for why a fixed pin on a map is a bad plan.

Can the boat go into the colony?

No. The 2009 survey already connected tourist disturbance with colonies leaving a site, and the park says Crni Žar closes in as the water falls. Those reserves are not on our routes from the old stone bridge. We do not take the boat into the colony. The same rule is in the whiskered tern guide: stay in the open water beside the cover.

If you want a look toward the reserves from land, the park describes a viewing tower in Hum Bay, a few kilometres from Podgorica. That is a land view. It is not a stop on a boat from Rijeka Crnojevića.

When can you see one from the western channels?

From Rijeka Crnojevića, our bird calendar points to March on the channels, then July and August, and it still names the Amazon route in October. May and June are the colony months at Crni Žar. Those reserves are not on the route, so this boat is the wrong plan if a nest is what you came to see.

The bird on those channels is the small one, with a long tail and a brown head, low in the willow or on a dead branch over the lilies. The great cormorant is much larger. Our calendar puts the dense great-cormorant roosts in December, January, and February. Both species use the reserves in the breeding season. On the western channels, size and the long tail are the practical difference.

Nothing in that is a promise for a given morning. Wind, water level, and where the fish are all move the birds. If one is sitting on a branch, the useful thing is to sit still and watch. Chasing the perch puts the bird off it. The pelican guide is the wider map of the lake's birds. This page is only the cormorant question.

Are they endangered?

No. BirdLife has assessed the pygmy cormorant as Least Concern since 2005, and the 2025 assessment kept that category. The population trend it reports is increasing.

Least Concern is not a reason to enter a colony. The Skadar nests sit inside special nature reserves, and BirdLife lists the species on Annex II of the Bern Convention. Pages that still call the bird near threatened are using the 2004 assessment. The 2009 WWF survey used that older label too.

Which tour runs beside that water?

The Amazon Tour does. It is one hour and €85 for the private boat, through the channels where the calendar looks for this bird. Open Lake plus the Amazon channels is €95 and about one hour and twenty minutes. The Complete Tour is €120 and about one hour and forty minutes. It adds the canyon and Karuč, the fishing village and the clear spring, not the nesting reserve. The half-hour Canyon Tour stays in the river canyon and does not put you on those willow channels.

Every price is for the whole boat, up to eight guests, from the old stone bridge in Rijeka Crnojevića. Parking there is free. The national park ticket is separate: €5 for an adult, free for children under 15. The cost guide is the full breakdown. Best Skadar Lake Tours compares the lengths without the bird calendar.