Fig. 5. The distribution of the momentary drag along an average paddling cycle of the great cormorant. Momentary drag is calculated using the C_d average for each of the paddling stages. To average all the analyzed sequences despite the differences in cycle duration, the x-axis is the proportion of the cycle duration that is normalized by dividing the period of each stage (stroke, glide and recovery) by the mean duration of that stage. To allocate equal weight to all birds, the sequences of each bird were first averaged and then means ± S.E.M. of all birds were calculated.