Many people who see white pelicans 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 wing tips, 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.
It was in the mid-1970’s that Charlotte and I saw our first
flock of around 20 white pelicans along the west shore of the
Indian River several miles north of Vero Beach, Florida. We
watched from a distance as they staged their interesting team
action for capturing fish. 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 the Gordon
Lodge Resort north of Baileys Harbor in late October of 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 al ready begun nesting at the Horicon National Wildlife
Refuge.
To witness the largest white pelican nesting colony in the
U.S. you have to travel to the Chase Lake National Wildlife
Refuge in North Dakota, established by President Teddy Roosevelt
in 1908. An estimated 16,883 nests (33,766 adults) were there in
2002. 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 the highly alkaline lake where the
birds nest. Interestingly it’s the tiger salamander at their
nesting site that is the number one food base for the pelicans.
Mostly rough fish and other amphibians, with very few game fish,
make up the bulk of their diet.
Around 350 pair nested on Cat Island in Green Bay this year
and UWGB 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 started 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 this late spring washed out many of the nesting
white pelicans at Horicon Marsh causing them to move northward to
find better conditions. Around 350 pair of them have renested on
Lone Tree Island in lower Green Bay and others have moved
northward to various sites along the west shore.
Charlotte and I, along with our friend, Barbara, observed
between 400 to 500 at Little Sturgeon Bay this past week. Some
appeared to be young birds that were hatched last year. They
busied themselves preening and simply loafing in the bright early
morning sun.
Careful studies in the past have shown that less than 1% of
the pelicans’ food is fish edible by people. More than 90% of
the diet of pelicans in the Gulf region, for example, consists of
menhaden, a noncommercial fish. Unfortunately much unjust
prejudice against these incredible pelicans still exists.
Any time you have a large beautiful 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 they want to catch. In short, they imply that, without any
research whatsoever 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 Gay must also be considered competitor
species to the perch.
The hundreds and hundreds of ice shanties along the east shore
of frozen Green Bay in around 1990, when the daily limit per
person of 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 cormorant population (adults and young) for
something like 16-17 years, assuming that all they ate were
yellow perch!
I’ll always side with the awesome soaring white pelicans with
the 9 to 9 and a half 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.
Eastern Wisconsin is the summer home of more than a thousand white pelicans,
including these at Little Sturgeon Bay.
This column appeared in the Door County Advocate
on 07/24/2004.
© Copyright 2004 Roy Lukes. All rights reserved.
