A wonderful bird is the pelican; His beak can hold more than his belican; He can take in his beak; Enough food for a week; But I just don’t see how the helican. — Dixon Lanier Merritt
I’m not really a “birder.” You know, those folks with their binoculars and their notebooks, their “Guides to North American Birds” and their cameras with the long-range telephoto lenses. The folks who tramp the woods and the marshes to catalogue all their sightings. But I do love the birds that I can see from my windows.
I have a number of feeders in my yard, and I’m always tickled when I see a new species come in for a visit. I’m easily entertained, I guess. I can watch the lovely little creatures for a long time without getting bored.
We live across the street from the lake, and for the last couple of years we’ve been treated to a display of beauty and grace put on by the American white pelicans that have taken up residence on the lake. Until about five or six years ago, we never saw any of them; now there are hundreds of them out there.
I read that the pelicans were numerous in Wisconsin in the 1800s and then completely disappeared, probably killed off by hunters. And then, in recent years, they began moving back from growing populations in western Minnesota, the Dakotas and Canada. I’m told that the Horicon Marsh has a large population, too.
They’re magnificent birds, one of North America’s largest. The American whites are distinctive for their 9-foot wingspans, snow-white bodies and their huge, orange bills and throat pouches. In spite of their size (I’ve read they can weigh 20 to 25 pounds), the pelicans are graceful fliers, with flocks soaring high in the air and wheeling in unison. They often fly over our golf course in formations, like the Navy’s Blue Angels.
From a distance, you might mistake them for hawks because of the way they ride the thermals. When they’re in flight, you can see the black tips and trailing edges of their wings. They’re gorgeous birds.
I’ve watched the brown pelicans in Florida when we’ve been there to visit my sister. The brown pelicans are much smaller and have different feeding habits. They’ll fly along the surface of the water, their wings sometimes touching the water, and then they’ll suddenly plunge-dive into the water to grab a fish.
Unlike the brown pelicans, American whites do not plunge-dive to feed. They feed while swimming and work together in groups to encircle their prey, submerging their heads to catch fish.
Last summer some friends took us out on the lake on their pontoon boat. David is an avid birder (he even has bird calls on his smart phone!) and is very familiar with the lake and its islands. He took us close to a couple of small islands that were totally covered with pelicans. The birds seem to tolerate lookers if you’re not too noisy or aggressive.
In the fall, the white pelicans leave the lake and head south. I read that thanks to a 30-year leg-banding study, biologists now know that the pelicans who “summer” in our area overwinter in Mexico, Texas and other Gulf states. This year, I saw the earliest returnees were here before all the ice was off the lake.
I also read that the pelicans can live as long as 30 years. Maybe that means we’ll have them around our lake for a very long time.
I’ve heard that some people are not so enthusiastic about the prospect of having a large population of American whites on the lake because the adults can consume anywhere from 3 to 8 pounds of fish a day. That’s a lot of fish, and some of the fishermen would just as soon see the birds gone. Not me; I think they’re beautiful.
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