Sublime Fliers

Hardly a day in recent weeks has gone by without our enjoying small groups of White Pelicans lazily gracing the sky above. Many people who see these birds in flight for the first time quickly conclude that they are the most awesome flying birds they have ever seen.

Soaring stately in stark silence, immaculate white bodies and black wingtips, with the grace of flying ballerinas, flapping together, then sailing in unison, their highly synchronized actions can be looked upon as orchestrated productions of incredible beauty.

A White Pelican cleans and preens while stretching its wings to show the black feathers.

It was in the mid-1970s that Charlotte and I saw our first flock of about 20 White Pelicans along the west shore of the Indian River several miles north of Vero Beach, Fla.

We watched from a distance as they staged their interesting team action for capturing their aquatic prey. Slowly, swimming in a graceful arc, they drove the fish into the shallows while they “seined” the victims out of the water using their cavernous pouches. These flexible rubbery containers are said to hold about three gallons.

A lone White Pelican appeared along the shore at Gordon Lodge Resort, north of Baileys Harbor in late October 1978 that I was able to photograph for the record. At the time, annual records of Wisconsin birders indicated that these sublime fliers were seen five or fewer times annually within the state boundaries. That automatically placed those sightings in the rare category.

For many years their breeding range was considered to extend from southern Canada, eastern Oregon, northeastern, central and southwestern California to central-western Nevada, southern Montana, northern Utah, east-central North Dakota, and into central South Dakota. Nearly half of all White Pelicans in North America now breed in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada. It wasn’t until 1995 that a small flock began nesting on Cat Island in lower Green Bay. Apparently these enormous white birds had already begun nesting at the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge.

To witness the largest White Pelican nesting colony in the United States, you have to travel to Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge in North Dakota, established by President Teddy Roosevelt in 1908. An estimated 11,262 nests (22,524 adults) were there in 2007. Many of the birds at this famous refuge are known to fly as much as 100 miles one way in search of food for themselves and their young.

Few fish live in their highly alkaline lake where the birds nest. Interestingly it’s the Tiger Salamander at their nesting site that is the No. 1 food base for the pelicans. Mostly rough fish and other amphibians, with very few game fish, make up the bulk of their diet.

About 350 pair nested on Cat Island in Green Bay in 2004, and a University of Wisconsin-Green Bay ornithologist, Tom Erdman, has banded most of the young. He has been studying and researching this colony since it first began.

The adults begin to arrive in early to mid-April. Nesting has begun by early May and the first chicks hatch in early June, usually two per nest, but up to four. The young will spend four to five weeks in or near the nest. Finally they will gather in groups called creches or pods, where much sibling rivalry results in some bird loss.

Heavy rains in late spring of 2004 washed out many of the nesting White Pelicans at Horicon Marsh, causing them to move northward to find better conditions. About 350 pair re-nested on Lone Tree Island in lower Green Bay and others moved northward to various sites along the west shore.

An adult pelican at rest has most of its black feathers hidden under the white ones.

Charlotte and I, along with a good birdwatching friend, observed between 400 and 500 at Little Sturgeon Bay in mid-July of 2004. Some appeared to be young birds which were hatched last year. They busied themselves preening and simply loafing in the bright early morning sunshine.

Careful studies in the past have shown that less than one percent of the pelicans’ food is fish edible by people. More than 90 percent of the diet of pelicans in the Gulf region, for example, consists of Menhaden, a non-commercial fish. Unfortunately, much unjust prejudice against these incredible birds still exists.

Anytime you have a large beautiful, highly-visible native bird such as the White Pelican, known to eat small fish and other aquatic organisms, you are bound to have sport fishermen complain bitterly that these unwelcome birds are feasting upon the very fish the sportsmen want to catch. In short, they imply that, without any research whatever to back up their accusations, the White Pelicans are wiping out “our” perch population!

One of the urgent concerns of the sportsmen now should be the soaring population of the highly invasive, alien and damaging Round Goby. They displace native fish species, including the perch, by eating their eggs and young. Zebra Mussels, along with the roughly 17 million walleye fry planted by the DNR in the Fox River and lower Green Bay, must also be considered competitive to the perch.

The hundreds and hundreds of ice shanties along the east shore of frozen Green Bay, about 1,990, when the daily limit per person of Yellow Perch was 50 (100 perch possession), surely must have been extremely hard on the perch population. It was estimated that the number of perch taken in the winter through the ice during one of those best-of-years would have maintained our current large Double-crested Cormorant population (adults and young) for something like 16 to 17 years, assuming that all they ate were Yellow Perch!

My thoughts pleasantly continue to drift back to one of my favorite limericks, written by Dixon Lanier Merritt:

“A wonderful bird is the pelican.

His bill will hold more than his belican.

Young pelicans hatched last year show gray feathers on top of their heads.

He can take in his beak

food enough for a week.

But I’m damned if I see how the helican!”

I’ll always side with the awesome soaring White Pelicans with the 9 to 9 1/2 foot wingspan, one of the most incredible creatures on earth. These magnificent birds should be constant reminders of the wonderful earth we have, rich in biodiversity, that all can enjoy, if we constantly work together.