Cormorants (family Phalacrocoracidae) are predominantly black, with short legs, webbed feet and slender bodies. Their feathers get wet when they enter the water and cormorants are often spreading their wings out to dry them. They hunt underwater, swimming powerfully with their webbed feet.
Herons and egrets belong to a closely-related family, the Ardeidae, and are tall, slender birds with pointed bills and long thin toes. They frequent shallow water, vleis, grass plains and ploughed land, but I would consider them to be freshwater birds rather than coastal birds.
Closely related to cormorants, gannets (family Sulidae) have large bodies, heavy, sharply-pointed bills and short, web-footed legs. They often by plunge-diving !
F*CK FISH 