But the island is also one of the most important nesting grounds in the Northeast for six species of herons, some of them rare, and for sleek black cormorants, long-necked fish-eating seabirds.

It is a large (76 cm long, 2.5 kg in weight) black and white cormorant with pink feet.

The Imperial Shag (Phalacrocorax atriceps) is a black and white cormorant native to many subantarctic islands, the Antarctic Peninsula and southern South America, primarily in rocky coastal regions, but locally also at large inland lakes.

Snowy gannets, silvery gulls, black cormorants and other species of birds perch there.

Phalacrocorax fuscescens (black cormorant)

Phalacrocorax sulcirostris (little black cormorant)

The tanks are gone, but today the lake is a migratory bird habitat, and the daily sight of black cormorants coming to rest on the waters in the late evening has become one of Kinmen's iconic images.

It is a small short-billed cormorant usually black above and white below with a yellow bill and small crest, although a mostly black white-throated form predominates in New Zealand.

There are also razorbills and guillemots, which look like miniature penguins; great black cormorants and their smaller cousins the shags; the mocking gulls, the suspicious gannets, the insouciant terns.