Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE STORK-LIKE BIRDS

THE PELICANS (Family Pelecanida)

Brown Pelican Behaviour

Mr. F.M.Chapman in his”Bird Studies with a Camera”and other places has given an entertaining account of a visit to the breeding grounds of this species in the Indian River region of Florida, where they are now under government protection. He found many hundreds of nests containing either eggs or young in various stages of growth.

The young were fed but twice a day, the old birds leaving at dawn for the fishing grounds, often many miles away, flying in the above-described regular manner, returning to the nests about eight o'clock. In feeding them they alighted by the side of the young birds, opened the bill and permitted them to help themselves.

The old birds then bathed in the adjacent water, or preened their feathers while disposed in long lines on the sand-bars, or sailed for hours high overhead. By the middle of the afternoon they left for a second trip to the fishing grounds,”and after the resulting catch has been delivered to the clamoring young, the Pelican's day's work is over."

Other species feed in a somewhat different manner. Selecting shallow water, they dispose themselves in long lines, at about equal distances apart, and regularly and systematically fish backward and forward until satisfied.

I have observed the White Pelican (P. erythrorhynchos) doing this on the Yellowstone Lake in the Yellowstone National Park.

As may have been gathered from the above statements, Pelicans nest in communities, usually on an island. The nest is a very rude affair, consisting of a quantity of earth, gravel, and rubbish heaped together to a height of a few inches. The eggs vary in number from one to three or four, the former apparently being the usual complement. They are pure white, with the shell rough and chalky, and often blood-stained.

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