Is Kansas the Tropics?

Three year birds in one hour.  The best of the bunch was a bird I got last year (to my surprise), but perhaps is not that rare in the county now-a-days.  I drove up to the Rooks State Fishing Lake and was presented with this picture:

A small cormorant--could it be?

I immediately was surprised by the sight of a small cormorant, or at least it appeared to be a small cormorant.  It's amazing how often the size of birds can be tricky to truly ascertain.  No matter how I looked at the bird, it just looked smaller than the nearby Double-cresteds.  I looked at it through the scope; the lores were dark grey/black.  One point for what I suspected.  There was a very thin "v" at the gape.  The bird was in basic plumage.  I could not count this as a point towards my hypothesis.  Perhaps due to my presence, the birds took off and amazingly flew right by me.  Here is a picture of what I saw:

A small cormorant--it sure looks to be!

As you can tell from the photo, the bird is noticeably smaller, with a thinner neck (another point), smaller bill (another point), and shorter wings (just one more point).  What you can't tell is that the tail was long and skinnier than the Double-cresteds (yep, another point).  The tail is lost somewhere in this photo.  Where it went, I'll never know.  

The birds landed not too far away, so I pulled the car around and got some great looks at the bird.  The characteristic white "v" at the gape of an alternative-plumaged bird was not there yet, but I could see a thin "v."  The bird's bill was shorter and thinner than a Double-crested's would be.  

A small cormorant--it's got to be.

The birds finally took off and circled the lake a few times.  I got some photos of the bird and by this time was 100% convinced that I had found my second Rooks County Neotropic Cormorant (#119).

 Neotropic Cormorant--look at that tail.

 Neotropic Cormorant--notice the size difference.

Neotropic Cormorant--see the difference in build and tail structure.

Obviously I was excited, and that excitement was soon compounded when two Greater Yellowlegs     (#120) flew in "tu-tu-tuu"ing all the way.  And not to be outdone, a small raft of  eight Eared Grebes (#121) made their presence known to me.  The interesting thing about the grebes is that the birds represented a nice spectrum of the plumages: a few birds were essentially in basic plumage, one was essentially in alternate plumage, and the rest were somewhere in between.