WHITE PELICANS MAKE A FLYBY OVER TEXAS
Flocks of American white pelicans are sailing slowly across our skies in a glorious procession as though skyborne floats in a parade.
They began arriving in October, with numbers swelling this month. The pelicans migrate from breeding grounds in the Midwest, where I’ve seen them in huge breeding colonies at Minnesota’s Lake of the Woods.
Flocks in Texas float on inland lakes and coastal bays. They have elegant white plumage and a long, robust yellow beak with an expandable pouch hanging like a sling beneath the lower mandible. Groups paddle in circles or semicircles and may slap the water with their wings to herd small fish into shallow waters.
Once pelicans corral a school of fish, they’ll lower their beaks in the water while expanding the pouch like a dip net to hoist up fish, along with bycatch like minnows, tadpoles, crawfish and salamanders. The bird will then raise the beak horizontally above the water’s surface to strain the pouch full of water for its cache of food.
People in ancient times confused storks with pelicans, which led to tales about storks delivering newborn babies cradled in a sling draped over the beak. Medieval stories told of female white pelicans puncturing their breasts with their beaks to feed blood to dying chicks — reviving them, thus signifying rebirth.
But American white pelicans will desert eggs and chicks if people get too close to nests; the birds are supersensitive to human activity near nesting grounds. Maybe it’s because people used to
shoot pelicans for trophies. Better to flee people and build new nests.
They are of course vacationing with us for the winter, not nesting. Nonetheless, groups of white pelicans on our waters will suddenly erupt in flight if anglers or motorboats get too near.
Pelicans standing on pilings or on the edge of a lake look like 4-foot-tall white marble statues. In the evening, they roost in flocks on sandbars or islands.
Flocks of flying pelicans look as though they’re floating in the sky with a buoyant, graceful flight on their broad white wings edged in black, spanning 9 feet. Flocks fly in V or J formations, with individuals taking turns as the lead bird to conserve energy.
Unlike brown pelicans, who live mostly around salt water, white pelicans abide both fresh and salt water.
My wife Kathy and I saw a large flock sail beside the Fred Hartman Bridge and settle into the waters of the ship channel.