16 T?H BE sA+U°D1U:B O N= B Ui ae 
Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) 
By Anna C,. Ames 
THE BROWN PELICAN is the official state bird of Louisiana. It is repre- 
sented on the state seal and thus appears on all official state documents. 
The Pelican is a huge, dark bird with a length of 44 to 54 inches and a 
wingspread of 7 to 9 feet. The adults in summer have upper parts a silvery 
gray, underparts gray-brown, head yellowish-white, and neck dusky, 
bordered with white. In winter they are similar,, but the neck is entirely 
white. The bill is more than twice the length of the head, rather short, 
straight, and depressed toward the end. The fully-grown adult weighs about 
8 pounds, but its skeleton weighs only 11% pounds. 
Young pelicans on hatching are naked and homely, but soon are covered 
with white down. The young grow slowly and it is midsummer before they 
have completely lost their natal down, replaced with contour feathers, 
and acquired their flight feathers. Fully-fledged young are mostly gray 
in color. 
A distinctive feature of the pelican is the great pouch which depends 
from its lower mandible. The bill may be 18 inches long, and the pouch, 
6 inches in depth, can hold 8% quarts of water. Parent birds carry fiood to 
their young in their gullets rather than in their pouches, and regurgitate 
to feed the nestlings. One authority, Dr. Bartholomew, says the pouch 
with its great expanse of vascular surface is an important cooling organ. 
Pelicans invariably fly in a straight line with alternate flapping and 
sailing. They keep in flocks throughout the year. These usually have from 
50 to 60 members of both sexes and various ages. The flight of the Brown 
Pelican is both leisurely and extremely powerful, and their formation of 
lines or wedges, in which the wingbeats make a rhythmic sequence, has 
often been described. They fiy with the head hunched back on the shoulders 
and their long, flat bills resting comfortably on their curved necks. 
Brown Pelicans have remarkable powers of flight, nothwithstanding 
their weight. During the courtship season, flock after flock will rise as 
high as a mile in the air and slide and glide about each other for an hour 
at a time. Then they zigzag downward with remarkable velocity and settle 
on the water, sandbars, or mangroves. 
When pelicans perch, the hind toe is opposed to the others, notwith- 
standing the continuity of the web. The tight grip is a natural concomitant 
of pull of the tendons resulting from the weight of the bird. The perching 
ability of this bird increases its choice of nesting sites, and they nest on 
the ground, in trees, or on the flattened tops of low shrubbery. Pelicans 
live in large colonies near water. The nest may be only a few sticks on 
the ground or a well-built structure on the top of a low-growing mangrove. 
The male helps to build the nest where it will receive as much sunshine 
as possible. He takes turns in the 30-day incubation and also helps to 
feed and shade the young. The birds carry in their bills dry sticks to make 
a solid platform and then add roots and withered plants to form a base. 
The three eggs, never more, are whitish or a dirty brown in color. They 
are hard and thick-shelled, with a chalky, granular surface. Pelicans have 
been known to nest practically every month of the year in one locality or 
another, even in fall and winter. In eastern Florida the tendency is to 
breed in the autumn, with variable and prolonged dates of egg laying, 
but on the western coast they breed in the spring. 
