Brown Pelican

Pelecanus occidentalis

Pelícano Pardo; Alacatraz

Audio
(M. Oberle)

IDENTIFICATION: A familiar, large brown seabird with a white head, a long bill, and a huge, expandable throat pouch. Adults in breeding plumage have a chestnut neck and yellow feathers on the head as well. For the first three years, immature birds are dull brown with white underparts. Length: 100-137 cm.; weight: 3,500 g.

VOICE: Does not vocalize. The only sound most people ever hear a pelican make is the noise their wings make as they take off. Audio (M. Oberle).

HABITAT: Feeds in shallow lagoons, reef edges, and bays, sometimes at the edge of the surf.

HABITS: The Brown Pelican flies singly or in small flocks, sometimes almost touching the ocean surface to take advantage of the "ground effect" i.e., increased lift from the cushion of air that forms under the wing near a flat surface. It hunts for schools of small fish or shrimp, and suddenly dives straight down to capture a school in its huge throat pouch. It then tilts its head back and drains the water out before dining on its catch. Frigatebirds and Laughing Gulls sometimes steal its food. Although the pelican is generally cautious about humans’ approach, sometimes it boldly lands on a dock or even in a swimming pool! It breeds throughout the year with peak nesting activity from April to June and from November to January; building large stick nests usually in traditional colony sites on offshore islands. It lays 2-4 white eggs. Both sexes incubate the eggs over 28-30 days, and the young can fly 10-12 weeks after hatching. Females don’t start breeding until 3 years old.

STATUS AND CONSERVATION: The Brown Pelican is on the federal endangered species list, but is frequently seen feeding in coastal areas. Its nesting success declined due to egg damage from the insecticide DDT, but has increased with the ban on that insecticide. The population in Puerto Rico experiences low fledging success. Major die-offs---primarily of juvenile pelicans--- occur regularly. This phenomenon is not well understood. Dozens of pelicans in Puerto Rico have been documented to have died while trying to swallow the South American Sailfin Armored Catfish, an escaped aquarium fish native to South America. Nesting colonies are susceptible to disturbance by human visitors and nest predators. The Caribbean population numbers only 1,500 nesting pairs, but migrants from North America also winter in the West Indies. In 1996, the Brown Pelican was featured in a series of U.S. Postal Service, 32-cent stamps on Endangered Species (Catalog item 4493).

RANGE: The Brown Pelican inhabits warmer coastal waters throughout the Western Hemisphere. Near Puerto Rico it nests at only a few locations such as Cayo Conejo off Vieques, but can be seen along any shallow coastal area and many salt and freshwater lagoons and lakes.

TAXONOMY: PELECANIFORMES; PELECANIDAE

References

Bent, A.C. 1922. Life histories of North American petrels and pelicans and their allies. Smithsonian Instit. U.S. National Museum Bull. 121. (Reprinted by Dover Press, 1964).

Bunkley-Williams, L., E. H. Williams Jr., C. G. Lilystrom, I. Corujo-Flores, A. J. Zerbi, C. Aliaume, and T. N. Churchill. 1994. The South American Sailfin Armored Catfish, Liposarcus multiradiatus (Hancock), a new exotic established in Puerto Rican fresh waters. Carib. J. Sci. (30):90-94.

Collazo, J. A., J. E. Saliva and J. Pierce. 2000. Conservation of the Brown Pelican in the West Indies. Pp. 39-45 in Status and conservation of West Indian seabirds (E. A. Schreiber and D. S. Lee, eds.). Soc. Carib. Ornith., Special Pub. No. 1.

Collazo, J. A., T. A. Agardy, E. E. Klaas, J. E. Saliva, and J. Pierce. 1998. An inter-decadal comparison of population parameters of brown pelicans in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Colon. Waterbirds 21:61-65.

Dammann, A.E. and D.W. Nellis. 1992. A natural history atlas to the cays of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Pineapple Press, Sarasota, FL.

del Hoyo, J., A. Elliott, and J. Sargatal, eds. 1992. Handbook of Birds of the World, Vol. 1, Ostrich to ducks. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.

Erdman, D.S. 1967. Seabirds in relation to game fish schools off Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Carib. J. Sci. 7:78-85.

Ehrlich, P.R., D.S. Dobkin, and D. Wheye. 1988. The birder’s handbook: a field guide to the natural history of North American birds. Simon and Schuster/Fireside, NY.

Nixon, S. and V. Lee. 1998. A comparison of foraging techniques of Brown Pelicans and Brown Boobies in Sandy Ground Lagoon, Jost Van Dyke, B.V.I. Carib. J Sci. 34(1-2):125-129.

Norton, R.L. 1988. The density and relative abundance of Pelecaniformes on the Eastern Puerto Rico Bank in December 1982. Carib. J. Sci. 24:28-31.

Raffaele, H.A. 1989. A guide to the birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Princeton.

Raffaele, H.A. 1989. Una guía a las aves de Puerto Rico y las Islas Vírgenes. Publishing Resources, Inc., Santurce, PR.

Raffaele, H.A., J.W. Wiley, O.H. Garrido, A.R. Keith, and J.I. Raffaele. 1998. Guide to the birds of the West Indies. Princeton.

Saliva, J.E. 1994. Vieques y su fauna: Vieques wildlife manual. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Boquerón, PR.

Schreiber, E. A. and D. S. Lee. 2000. West Indian seabirds: a disappearing natural resource. Pp. 1-10 in Status and conservation of West Indian seabirds (E. A. Schreiber and D. S. Lee, eds.). Soc. Carib. Ornith., Special Pub. No. 1.

Schreiber, E. A. 2000. Action plan for conservation of West Indian seabirds. Pp. 182-191 in Status and conservation of West Indian seabirds (E. A. Schreiber and D. S. Lee, eds.). Soc. Carib. Ornith., Special Pub. No. 1.

Shields, M. 2002. Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis). No. 609 in The Birds of North America (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.

Wiley, J. W. 2000. A bibliography of seabirds in the West Indies. Pp. 192-225 in Status and conservation of West Indian seabirds (E. A. Schreiber and D. S. Lee, eds.). Soc. Carib. Ornith., Special Pub. No. 1.

Williams, E. H., Jr., L. Bunkley-Williams, and I. Lopez-Irizarry. 1992. Die-off of brown pelicans in Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands. Am Birds 46:1106-1108.

Brown Pelican, Spanish text

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