A wonderful bird is the Pelican.
His beak can hold more than his belly can.
He can hold in his beak
Enough food for a week!
But I'll be darned if I know how the hellican?
Dixon Lanier Merritt
I had the good fortune to live in the San Francisco Bay Area for 35 years. There I would often see Brown Pelicans execute their dives into the bay waters targeting and securing fish. That they could spot their prey from so far above boggles the mind. More on this later with some video.
I’ve also had the good fortune to observe American White Pelicans do their thing in completely different waters through completely different techniques. More on this to follow, too.
There are eight species of pelicans in the world and all of them have the throat pouch for which they are known.
Many pelicans fish by swimming in cooperative groups. They may form a line or a "U" shape and drive fish into shallow water by beating their wings on the surface. When fish congregate in the shallows, the pelicans simply scoop them up.
As you can see from the photo above, these pelicans are hardly in a line feeding or in a U shape herding fish. No, it’s every pelican himself or herself in this photo because I happened upon a feeding frenzy of pelicans and ducks who were enjoying a herring run. Katie bar the door!
Here’s a more typical photo of American White Pelicans feeding together in more of a line formation. As I watched them move through the water from the shore, they reminded me of sewing machine needles going up and down, up and down.
The Brown Pelican, on the other hand, dives on fish from above and snares them in its bill. Pelicans do not store fish in their pouch (despite the limerick above,) but simply use it to catch them and then tip it back to drain out water and swallow the fish immediately. Another tidbit about that pouch, also called the gular pouch or gular sac, is that the highly-flexible sacs can expand or contract, and the lower jaw bones they’re connected to are capable of bowing outwards, which enables the birds to use their sacs as fishing nets.
There are some other fun facts about pelicans that I never knew before doing some research for this diary. For one thing, pelicans are very, very old. The earliest pelican fossil on record is a 30-million-year-old skull that was found in the Oligocene deposits of France. Paleontologists have also uncovered younger material from places like Germany, India, Kenya, Peru, Australia, and North Carolina. Pelicans are found on every continent except Antarctica.
Pelicans mostly eat fish, but there’s a widely reported story about a pelican eating a pigeon whole in St. James Park in London in front of some horrified schoolchildren. To my utter amazement, when I was searching YouTube for a video of a Brown Pelican diving, I saw things I can never unsee, such as a blackbird in a pelican’s pouch about to be swallowed, a cat uncomfortably close to a pelican and I passed on looking further, and one video that showed a pelican with half of a Canada Goose it was trying to down.
Apparently, pelicans will eat anything that can fit in their pouch, including crustaceans, amphibians, turtles, and—yes—other birds. That Canada Goose I saw must have escaped because there’s no way something that large could be eaten by a pelican. A shark or whale yes, but not a pelican. (I’m not going to watch the video to see.)
Still, on the subject of food, I mentioned in the opening paragraph that Brown Pelicans dive head first into the water to grab fish. Which raises the question of how they can survive when hitting the water head first (much like we wonder how woodpeckers protect their brains when hammering their beaks). Here’s an informative and fantastic video from PBS explaining everything you need to know about this keen-eyed fish predator.
Fascinating stuff, no?
Another peculiar thing about pelicans is that they grow a horn on their beak. Breeding season for American White Pelicans lasts from late March to early May. When it arrives, a broad, flat, yellow or orange “horn” appears on the upper bills of sexually mature birds (both male and female). At some point in May, the fibrous structures fall off, to be replaced with brand new ones the following season. I find this so peculiar. I know of no other bird with this characteristic. Here’s a photo I took a few years ago where you can see the horns. Why is it there? What is its purpose?
Pelicans are also great fliers. When a pelican is ready to fly it must have wind for its take-off. They will run over water, flap their wings and pound their feet over the surface of the water in unison to develop enough speed to take off. I’ve personally observed this, as have most of you who live in coastal or inland coastal areas where pelicans are common.
I really enjoy watching pelicans fly and I imagine you do, too. This awkward, ungainly, kind of comical bird with that pouch steals the show when they take flight.
Now, finally, my closing question. Do you recall the photo I posted at the top of this diary, telling you that I would ask your thoughts about it?
If you look closely at that photo, it appears that the pelican in flight has captured a fish or something closely resembling a fish in its talons — except that pelicans have webbed feet and not talons! What is it?! It looks like a fairly routine photo of an Osprey grabbing fish prey, but it’s NOT an Osprey. It’s an American White Pelican with webbed feet incapable of grasping anything! Give me your thoughts!
What’s happening in your birding world today?