Quantcast

Brown Pelican

Pelecanus occidentalisOrder: PELECANIFORMESFamily: Pelicans (Pelecanidae)

Brown Pelican Portrait
  Copyright 2002-2007 Whatbird.com
Click here for licensing information Splitbar

General

Brown Pelican: Large, unmistakable seabird with gray-brown body, dark brown and pale yellow head and neck, and oversized bill. Large feet are webbed. Sexes are similar. Winter adult has pale neck and head. Juvenile has browner upperparts, paler underparts, and dark neck and head.

Range and Habitat

Brown Pelican: Pacific, Atlantic, and Gulf coasts north to Nova Scotia, occasionally found inland. Preferred habitats include sandy coastal beaches and lagoons, waterfronts and pilings, and rocky cliffs.

Listen to Call

Voice Text

Generally silent

Interesting Facts

  • The Brown Pelican can hold about three gallons of water (and fish) in its pouch. They have air sacks beneath their skin and in their bones that make them very buoyant.
  • The Brown Pelican incubates its eggs in an unusual manner; it covers them with its webbed feet. This practice was detrimental to the species when the pesticide DDT was in common use. This pesticide caused thinning of the eggshells resulting in so many broken eggs that the species became endangered.
  • Though adult pelicans may consume as much as four pounds of fish per day, they do not compete with sport or commercial fishermen because of type of fish they eat.
  • A group of pelicans has many collective nouns, including a "brief", "pod", "pouch", "scoop", and "squadron" of pelicans.


Author

Gary Owen Dick

Splitbar
Range Map for Brown Pelican
.
Bird database and its related content, illustrations and media is Copyright © 2002 - 2007  Whatbird.com
All rights reserved. No part of this web site may be reproduced without written permission from Mitch Waite Group.
 Privacy Policy.
Percevia® Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Bird Call Credits: The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Martyn Stewart, http://www.naturesound.org, Redmond, Washington USA. The reuse or copying of bird calls in this database is strictly forbidden.
Family
Species Pelecanus occidentalis
Length48 - 50 Inches
Wingspan81 Inches

Brown Pelican

Brown Pelican: Large, unmistakable seabird, gray-brown body, dark brown, pale yellow head and neck, oversized bill. Black legs, webbed feet. Feeds on fish by plunge diving and scooping them up with pouch. Powerful flight alternates flaps with short glides. Flies close to the water in straight line.

● Song: Generally silent

● Foraging & Feeding: Brown Pelican: Eats mostly menhaden, accounting for over 90 percent of diet, but also preys on pigfish, pinfish, herring, sheepshead, silversides, mullet, top minnows, and crustaceans, usually prawns. Plunge dives to catch fish.

● Breeding & nesting: Brown Pelican: Lays two to four white eggs in a nest made of reeds, grass, straw, and sticks, and built in a tree; or builds a ground nest consisting of a shallow scrape lined with feathers and a surrounding rim of soil 4 to 6 inches high. Usually nests in colonies. Incubation ranges from 28 to 30 days and is carried out by both parents.

● Similar species: Brown Pelican: None in range.

Flight Pattern

Graceful., Powerful flight with deliberate wing beats alternating with short glides.
Brown Pelican Body Illustration
● Range & Habitat: Brown Pelican: Pacific, Atlantic, and Gulf coasts north to Nova Scotia, occasionally found inland. Preferred habitats include sandy coastal beaches and lagoons, waterfronts and pilings, and rocky cliffs.
BreedingMonogamous, Colonial
PopulationFairly common to common
MigrationMigratory
Weight131.2 Ounces