Brown Pelican

by Nick    

Birds are beautiful creatures.  Most birds have three different kinds of feathers and live in different environments. Birds have different beaks depending on what they eat and different claws.  Most can fly but others can not. Most importantly birds have two wings, are worm blooded, and most birds have hollow bones.  Birds are all vertebrates which means they have back bones.  Most birds have great sight, even better than humans. Also their sense of hearing for most birds is incredible.  Birds are amazing creatures. 

    The Brown Pelican is an incredible bird.   The field marks of a Brown Pelican are amazing. The colors of a Brown Pelican are obviously brown, light brown, and white on the  top of it's head.  Then in mating season the white turns yellow-gold and the rest of the colors turns silvery-gray.  The brown pelican is known for its straight bill with a huge pouch that can hold three times as much as its stomach.  The pouch can hold almost three gallons of fish and water.  After the bird fills its pouch, it can drain the water and eat the fish by tipping its head back and swallowing.  The pelican’s pouch is used for catching fish, feeding babies and cooling itself.  The brown pelican can grow to be four feet tall and weigh nine pounds.

Brown pelicans are meat eaters.  The brown pelican can spot fish from 20-60 feet in the air.  When it spots a fish, it dives into the water and the impact of the dive could kill any regular bird.  The pelican has air pockets in its body that protect it.  It hunts during the day and prefers fish that swim close to the surface of the water.  These fish include anchovies, herring, Pacific mackerel, minnows and sardines.

Brown Pelicans can be found mostly in South and Central America and live in colonies.  They like to build their nests on coastal islands where they are safe from predators.  They also build their nests up high (like bushes and tree branches) to be safe from floods.   The nests are made out of twigs, animal hair, grass and any other items that care be used that wash up on shore. 

Brown Pelicans usually mate September through November.  The males collect the nest materials and the female builds the nest.  The nests usually have three chalky white eggs.  Both birds help incubate the eggs.  Both birds also help feed and raise the baby pelicans. 

The brown pelicans have been endangered since 1970.  One reason is humans are disturbing their habitats.  Pelicans can also be injured by loose fishing lines which the birds get tangled up in.   Another danger to the brown pelican was DDT, a chemical that was used in 1960-1970 and was sprayed on grasses to kill weeds.  This chemical caused the shells of the eggs to become thinner so the babies would not be healthy when they hatched.  Sometimes they never hatched because the eggs would crack.   The number of brown pelicans is increasing.  In California only, there are about 5,000 pairs of pelicans.  The brown pelican has some relatives.  They are tropic birds, frigate birds, gannets, and cormorants.