Peculiar Pelicans

Why am I writing about pelicans and not other seabirds we see as live-aboards, such as seagulls, egrets, or sanderlings (those little birds that scurry between waves on the beaches)?

Well, it's because my dad and I have a real fondness for pelicans.  They always make us smile.  Their goofy appearance makes us think that nature, despite its harshness and cruelty, also has a sense of humor.  

When my dad and I are in our Nordhavn on the Atlantic, beyond sight of shore, and a pelican shows up, suddenly, we are less lonely.  A pelican helps us feel that, in all that vastness, we have a friend with us.

My dad challenged me to make this post fun (but not silly) and to make it as interesting as I could. 

I think this opening photo sets the right tone.

Australian pelican.  This bird has the wingspan of a 747.

As -- let's face it -- dumb as pelicans look, they are far from that.

They're remarkable.  In fact, they are some of the best flyers.  More about that below. 

Did you know pelicans are the world's largest water birds?  Hold on you say.   Isn't that the albatross?  Not so.  Whereas the albatross has a wing span of only 9.5 - 11.0 ft., the Australian pelican narrowly beats it with a wing span of 8.2 - 11.2 ft.  In other words, if one of those babies got inside our boat and spread its wings, it would stretch across the entire salon!  (And it would totally freak us out.)

There are 8 different pelican species, including one called the Dalmatian pelican (a bird you'd never want to engage in a staring contest).  

Photo credit:  Robert Otoole photography.  A Dalmatian pelican.  To me, the expression says "what are you looking at!"  Notice that's not a question.

Photo credit:  Warner Bros.  The only stare scarier that that pelican's is this one.  And yes, I've seen "The Shining."

The species my dad and I see along the Atlantic coast is called the brown pelican.  Its wingspan is around 7 feet.  Brown pelicans weigh about 6.5 lbs at maturity.  While they can live between 10 and 25 years, the oldest one lived for 43 years.  Let's do the math on that.  The typical 10 to 25 year lifespan averages out to 17.5 years.  That means our senior pelican's life of 43 years was 2.5 times the average.  When you consider the average life expectancy in the U.S. is 78 years, that pelican reached an age of 195 human years (2.5 x 78).  

Did you know a group of pelicans is called a "pod?"  Apparently though, a group can also be referred to as a "pouch" (love that one), "a scoop" (another great one), a squadron, or a fleet (when fishing).  With so many collective nouns for a bunch of pelicans, it seems to me you could even make up your own.  A plethora of pelicans, perhaps?  Profusion of pelicans?  Or maybe a parcel, a party, a pile or a pack?  Then again, since we're talking about a group of them, we could just go with a "plural of pelicans."  

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Why do pelicans look the way they do?  Thanks to Charles Darwin, we know why.  But what explains their evolution?  

Photo source:  Louisiana Universities Marine consortium.  Anatomy of a pelican.

Well, one thing we can say is that pelicans of today are barely different from fossils of their ancestors 30,000,000 (yes, that's million!) years ago.  In other words, today's pelicans date 1/2 way back to the age of dinosaurs.  By comparison, modern Homo sapiens (that's us) date back just 200,000 years ago. 

There are few other animals which have shown so little morphological change.  The term for it is "stasis."  Bats are another case.  They've been in near stasis for 50 million years.

The logical explanation why pelicans look the way they do, and have not evolved much in millions of years, is because they are already highly evolved.  Meaning, their form follows their function.  Meaning that the remarkable joint in their giant beaks (the longest of any bird in the world), which allows the two parts to become very distended (open super wide), makes them amazing fishermen!  More about that below.

A pelican has “a BIG mouth!"  

(We've watched the entire Honeymooners series on the boat.  I really liked it.)

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Pelicans in History

I couldn't find a lot about pelicans in history thousands of years ago.  But I learned some interesting things about them in recent history.

The American white pelican was a food source for some indigenous people in North America.  They would roast or broil them.  No word on whether they served buffalo pelican wings...  

I know.  😑

In medieval Europe, the pelican became a symbol of the Passion of Jesus and of the Eucharist beginning about the 12th century.  The origin of this actually goes back to an ancient legend that, in a time of famine, the female pelican would actually strike herself and feed her young from her own blood.  Another take on that legend was that the pelican would actually lose her own life doing this while saving the lives of her young.  So you can now see why the church picked the pelican as a symbol of Jesus.  Amazing isn't it!

Photo:  Our Lady of Sorrows.

Back in the late 1800's pelicans were hunted to make various products.  Their pouches (underneath their beaks) were turned into purses and tobacco pouches, their down was used for powder-puffs, and their wing bones were made into pipe stems.

And here in the U.S., the brown pelican has been the state bird of Louisiana since Europeans settled there.  They were impressed with its dedication to its young.  

The brown pelican appeared on Louisiana's state seal in 1902, but was in common use in the state way before then.

So, while we've learned the pelican has western religious significance, and culinary significance...  to some, quite a while ago...  and state significance in Louisiana, and that they were turned into some silly products, they have also served as artistic inspiration.  I'm not talking about airport gift shop art.  I'm talking about high art.  In fact, the highest in its field.

Behold the Fabergé Imperial Pelican Egg!  My dad actually found out about this for me.  But it doesn't matter because it fits this post, and now I know something about Faberge eggs.  Thanks to the pelican.  

Photo source:  The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.  The Imperial Pelican Egg.

The egg was an Easter gift from the Russian Tzar, Nicholas to his mother, the Dowager Empress, in 1898.  Fabergé did not create the egg himself.  One of his two best workmasters did.  It is made of engraved red gold with some diamonds and pearls and an enamel pelican on top feeding her young (a symbol of motherly care).  It is one of the few Faberge eggs that is not entirely enameled.  Amazingly, the egg fans open to reveal 8 beautiful watercolor miniatures of charitable organizations the Dowager Empress supported.  (Yes, she liked it.)

Photo source:  The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.  The miniatures.

You really should watch this 1 minute video of how the Egg opens.  It's amazing.

Incidentally, the highest price paid for a Faberge egg was $33,000,000.  There's no telling what the Pelican Egg is worth.  But given the House only made 69 eggs, with 57 known survivors, it's certainly worth many millions of dollars.

Nearly Extinct

Apparently our native brown pelican nearly went extinct between the 1950s and 1970!  This was due to pesticides entering their food chain and weakening their egg shells.  The banning of the insecticide DDT and the reduction in use of the pesticide Endrin (which killed them directly) is considered the main reason why they are back in reasonable number.  DDT was banned in the U.S. in 1972 while Endrin was banned here in 1984.

From near extinction, there are now an estimated 200,000 pelicans in the U.S. 

Although it's wonderful that pelicans, like Bald Eagles, are no longer considered endangered, they are still protected by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  And it's a good thing too.  A world without pelicans would be a sadder place for sure!  Think about it:  30,000,000 years of fantastic morphological stasis was almost ruined by us in just a couple decades.  I was born in 2007.  Without the steps we took to ban those two chemicals, the only pelicans I might have been able to see would be in zoos.

However, pelicans are still at risk from all sorts of human activity such as fishing line, oil, pesticides, boats, power lines, and increased coastal development.  Fishing line is the worst of those.

There is no pelican hunting season in the U.S.  So is there pressure to hunt pelicans?  I couldn't find any.  And here's what I think is the main reason why.  Pelicans are not good eating.  Apparently their meat is dark, oily, and strongly tastes like fish, even after salted for days. This is common to all fish eating birds.  Don't ask me how the indigenous peoples prepared them.  Perhaps buffalo sauce did the trick?  

That buffalo joke again...  I know.  😑

How am I doing?  Is this interesting and fun enough?

Well, it's about to get even better.

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How Pelican's Fly

While my dad and I get a kick about how pelicans look, what fascinates us most is how they fly.  We've noticed they hover inches (if that) above the water.  

It's rare their feather tips touch but maybe even more special to see that happen on a calm day.  Photo source:  Fine Art America   

We've also noticed they play what looks like follow the leader.  The first bird starts flapping, followed by the second bird, followed by the third bird, and so on.  The same thing happens when the first bird stops flapping.  The others do the same in the same order.

While that's interesting, its not amazing.  Here's what's amazing.  Pelicans can stay airborne for an entire day.  At almost 10,000 feet.  They can fly 375 miles at a time and reach speeds of 48 mph.  

As with Teslas, when it comes to pelicans, maximum speed won't allow maximum range.

How do they do this?  Well, beyond their huge wingspan and relative strength, like many birds, they read thermals.  What's a thermal?  Thermals are warm rising air currents that birds can detect and then ride to get higher and higher without ever flapping their wings.  It's called "thermal soaring."

There's no consensus about how birds sense thermals.  Some believe they detect ultra low sounds within the thermals.  Some believe they can feel changes in pressure via their inner ear.  And some believe they can feel the effects of a thermal on their wingtips, or have vestibular sensing (which is how we can tell we are going up or down in an elevator) and tweak their fight patterns using that feedback. 

Here's a video explaining how it works.

We've watched pelicans do this near high rise buildings, circling higher and higher.  We also know rising heat is one trick pelicans use to glide a long time just above the water, without descending.  So how good are pelicans at riding thermals?  One man observed a group of 36 white pelicans fly 15 miles without any of them flapping their wings!  Yes, they're that good.

People who fly gliders and paragliders copy birds and rise on thermals too... 

Photo source:  Flybc.org

...including Steve McQueen.  

My dad says anything that can be tied to Steve McQueen is instantly cool.  

Pelicans just got a whole lot cooler.

Here's one last video of pelicans flying.  This one is in slo-mo so you can really see the mechanics of what they do.  It's beautiful. 

How They Fish

Pelicans are the only species of bird to dive into the water from as high as 60 feet to fish.  

Diving into water from such heights is risky.  Here's why.  If you put your palm into water it slides in easily.  But when you slap the surface of water quickly, it stings.  That's because: 

1) The water didn't have time to "get out of the way"; and 

2)  Fluids, including water, cannot be compressed (remember that from my Hydraulics post?), so the more pressure exerted on water, such as hitting it at higher speed, the more it behaves like a solid.  

When pelicans dive, they can hit the water at speeds of 40 mph.  At that speed, a small mistake in their form could put them in the pelican E.R. with a broken wing or blindness, or the pelican morgue from a broken neck.  To protect themselves just before impact, pelicans always rotate to the left.  This is to avoid injuring their trachea and esophagus, which run down the right side of their neck.  They also tuck back their wings, close their eyes, and take a deep breath to fill up tiny air pockets under their skin which protect their internal organs.  

Amazingly, pelicans have learned to dive at a steep angles between 60 and 90 degrees to get a better aim at fish.  The straighter down, the less water refraction.  But while they may dive into the water, they are not deep divers.  They are "plunge divers."

Photo source:  Audubon.

Pelicans eat around 4.5 lbs of fish each day.  By comparison, cormorants eat around 1.5 lbs per day.  But here's the main difference between the two.  Pelicans eat what are called "trash fish."  Trash fish are species humans don't eat.  So we're chill with pelicans.

When pelicans grab a fish, they also grab as much as 3 gallons (26 lbs) of water in their pouches (which are called gulars, by the way).  Because they can't fly with all that weight, they tilt their heads back and allow openings at the backs of their beaks to drain the water out.  They then turn the fish around in their mouths, keeping a grip using a sharp tip at the end of their beaks, and swallow it whole, head first, so the fins won't get stuck on the way down.  After they swallow, because their stomachs are at the center of gravity, they are immediately ready to fly.

So, now that I've explained how they fish, here's a great video, where you can see all the steps.  

And here's another video of them fishing.  

Which reminds me.  Pelicans have learned to fish alongside people.  We watched pelicans fish inside the Canaveral lock.  They waited until our boat was in the lock and the gates were closed.  Then they scooped up the fish trapped inside.  They repeated this each time a boat locked.  Pretty smart.  

Our video of pelicans in the Canaveral lock.

Many times, we've watched them follow fishing boats, catching the fish or crabs the fishermen discard.  We've also watched them on piers, begging for scraps thrown to them by people fishing.  Here are a series of screenshots from a video my dad took.

I hate to eat and run, but gotta fly.

It was on a pier where I first petted a pelican.  And where one bit my dad.  (Still laughing about that.  I wrote about it in this blog last year.)  

Petting a pelican.  I really liked it.  He tolerated it.  By the way, a pelican's noggin is surprisingly hard!

Bet my dad won't do this again.

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How Pelicans Breed

Read this part with David Attenborough's voice in your head.

Pelicans can breed in very large groups up to 50,000 pairs (that's 100,000 pelicans).

On the east coast, pelicans breed in the barrier islands and other islands, except in Florida and Louisiana where they choose mangrove inlets. On the west coast they also breed on islands, though these are rocky (the islands, not the pelicans).  When they aren’t eating or nesting, pelicans rest on all sorts of things along the water’s edge.  

We often see pelicans lounging on the wooden structures that protect bridges on the Intracoastal.  When they sit down or sleep, they look like footballs.

Resting pelican?

The brown pelican nests on the ground and in trees. The male fetches the materials and the female builds. Interestingly the male knows to bring big pieces of wood first, then smaller and smaller sized ones. 

A clutch of eggs numbers between 2 and 4 and they incubate from 29-35 days.  Males and females incubate the eggs.  But not with their feathered bodies.  They stand on them and incubate them, with their feet!  

Unfortunately, if a nesting pelican is startled, the force of pushing off to take flight can crush the eggs they are standing on.

Once hatched, baby pelicans can fly after just 3 months.  

Now, neither my dad nor I have ever heard a peep from a pelican.  They just stare at us, or soar by us silently.  Adults usually are silent unless they are jerking their wings.  That forces air out of their lungs to make a low hoarse (not horse) sound. The other sound they make is a loud snapping together of their beaks when they are defending themselves or their nests.  Babies (called nestlings) use a high pitched squawk to call for food. 

I found this link to pelican sounds.  As you'll hear, they don't qualify as songbirds.  https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Brown_Pelican/sounds

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So that's it.  You and I now know a lot more about pelicans.  Yes, they'll aways look silly.  But I think you'll agree they are birds worthy of a lot of respect.    

Photo source:  Audubon

As you know, I like to end my posts with things that are funny or cool.  So here are two fantastic GoPro videos of pelicans in rehab.  What makes them so special?  The camera was mounted to their beaks!  

First, learning to fly.

And now, learning to fish.

Here's another interesting clip.  I call it "pelicans gone bad."  It's a reminder that pelicans are, in fact, carnivores.

And remember Nigel, the pelican in Finding Nemo?

He's right.  Seagulls are "rats with wings."

Speaking of seagulls, in a battle between a seagull and a pelican, bet on the pelican.  Especially if he brings back-up.

P.S.  One final thought.  A piece of advice.  Don't mess with a pelican.