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Hi telfan,

                 do not be misled by low opinions of the value of bird  eye focus.

The plane of focus is also very important along with the  depth of field when shooting birds in flight

If you shoot a bird from below flying overhead, or a bird with spread wings in front of you it is likely you will have full focus  across the resulting image

As the combination of a near flat plane of focus along with a deep dof....if the bird is distant from you will support this.

In shooting birds flying horizontally sideways in panning mode or flying directly toward you however, unless you have skill sets to enable you to focus on the head/eye with spot et al,  birdeye focus will help to avoid focus on a wing tip or beak. Your cormorant shots  above seem to be suffering from this to a degree.

Bottom line is except for images with a flat plane of focus and deep dof,efficient   bird eye  focus such as the A9ii,  A1 and maybe A7Rv will focus on the eye of the biRds you shoot and ignore the Potential wingtips/beak focus with soft body.......the standard camera focus algorithm which is set to focus on the composition most frontward or center element whilst bird eye focus will override this if an eye is detected.

Hope this further claries the matter of BIF focusing.