PELICANS: Family Pelecanidae [ 93 ] 



are willing to take the food that is most easily obtained and that in 

 most of the great shallow lakes frequented by them suckers and other 

 trash fish answer the purpose. We have no stomach examinations of 

 Oregon birds, but the remains about colonies are seldom those of game 

 fish. The authors feel strongly that many fish-eating birds are persecuted 

 at every turn by people who simply desire to kill anything as magnificent 

 in appearance as this bird, working great harm thereby, as the birds cer- 

 tainly do no wrong in destroying spawn-eating fish. Where carp are 

 present in numbers, game fish suffer correspondingly. As carp are slower 

 than game fish, they are much more easily caught by pelicans than the 

 latter, and it is inevitable that they furnish a much larger per cent of the 

 pelican's diet than the swiftly moving trout and other game fish. 



California Brown Pelican: 



Pelecanus occidentalis californicus Ridgway 



DESCRIPTION. "Tail feathers 2.2.. Breeding flumage: pouch reddish; head, and feathers 

 next to pouch, white; crown tinged with yellow; neck, including manelike crest, rich 

 velvety brown; upper parts silvery gray, streaked with brownish; under parts brown- 

 ish, streaked on sides with white. Winter plumage: head and neck white, tinged 

 with yellowish on throat and crown. Young: upper parts grayish brown, darker on 

 back; under parts white, tinged on sides with brownish." (Bailey) Downy young: 

 Born naked with a dull red skin that changes to black but soon covered with white 

 down. Si%e-' "Length 4^2 feet or more, wing xo.5o-x3.x5, bill ix. 2.5-14. 75." 

 (Bailey) Nest: A bulky structure of sticks, grass, and rubbish, usually on rocky 

 islands, often used year after year with fresh material added. Eggs: i to 3, usually 3, 

 dull, dirty white with a rough granular surface. 



DISTRIBUTION. General: Breeds on islands off coast from Santa Barbara Islands 

 southward to the Galapagos Islands and ranges northward between breeding seasons 

 to British Columbia. In Oregon: Off coast, from June to December, most abundant 

 in August and September. 



THE CALIFORNIA BROWN PELICAN is a breeding bird of the southern part 

 of the United States and is known as an Oregon bird only when it makes 

 its appearance on the coast between breeding seasons. The number making 

 the flight to the coastal bays has decreased markedly in recent years, a 

 statement true of most of the larger birds. The northward flight appar- 

 ently occurs in July, as the birds are most abundant in August and Sep- 

 tember (our earliest date, June 2.1, Curry County), and there are usually 

 few present after the first of November (our latest date, December 2.7, 

 Tillamook County). Townsend (1839) recorded seeing one on December 

 n, 1834, off the mouth of the Columbia certainly the first Oregon record 

 and also one of the latest winter dates yet noted. Woodcock (1901) listed 

 it from Yaquina Bay. Subsequent to these records our own notes and 

 publications are all that are available. We have seen the birds along every 

 coastal county and on all the larger bays. Most of them are immature, 

 although adults with the distinctly marked heads are not uncommon. 



