Brown Pelican

 Most people know how pelicans hunt. From an early age many of us have seen cartoons that feature pelicans whose bill can expand like a large pouch. This is fairly accurate at least when it comes to white pelicans.

 Brown pelicans however are a different matter. They usually fly low over the water scanning for fish and when they see one they dive head first into the water. Often there dive is so sudden that the rest of their body tumbles awkwardly into the water behind their diving head.

Like many predators hunting for prey there are many more failures then successes. But when a brown pelican fails it gets back up into the air and gets ready for another dive. These pelicans were photographed in south Texas near Brownsville.

Brown Pelican

When you talk about pelicans most people envision the white pelican but there is a second type of pelican that is found in North America. The brown pelican is a coastal bird that lives along the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts of the U.S. Brown pelicans can also be found in coastal regions of Mexico, Central America, the Caibbean Islands and north-western South America. The brown pelicans of South America are considered by some to be a seperate species because they are larger and have some streaking on their undeparts, however they act the same as other brown pelicans so at this time they are considered one species.
Brown pelicans also hunt differently then white pelicans. Both birds have a flap of skin on the underside of their bill which extends down forming a pouch; however while the white pelican scoops up water and fish in its pouch while swimming around, the brown pelican flies over the water and when it sees a fish below it goes into a twisting dive, plunging into the water and trapping the fish with in its pouch. I photographed these brown pelicans down in Texas.

Bahia Grande

On our way to the airport on the final day of our Texas trip we passed by the Carl Gayman Bahia Grande Restoration Channel. The Bahia Grande was once a large salt water lagoon located at the south east tip of Texas. This lagoon consisted of numerous habitats, such as tidal flats, mangrove marshes and sea grass shallows, that formed a type of tidal nursery where young fish, shrimp and crabs, and other marine life could find protection while they grew.
In the 1930's the Brownsville Ship Channel was created. This 15 mile long channel connects the port of Brownsville to the ocean. Because the port is inland it is better protected from hurricanes and tropical storms. Unfortunately when they were dredging the channel they piled most of the dredged materials, mostly rock, mud and sand, on the side of the channel. This acted as a sort of damn cutting off the Bahia Grande from the waters of the Laguna Madre.

With any regenerating supply of water, the only water coming from occasional rain storms, the land dried up. As the remaining water evaporated it left the salt behind which killed off the vegetation. Over the decades the area became a baron dust bowl, with dust blowing into the neighboring communities.

The Bahia Grande eventually came under the domain of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and it is now a part of the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. The Fish and Wildlife Service along with other state, local and private groups have begun a plan to try and restore the Bahia Grande. Channels like this one have been dug from the ship channel out into the Bahia Grande. This is the pilot channel and it is 60 feet wide by 2,300 feet long. It is named for the Carl "Joe" Gayman who was a Brownsville Navigational District commissioner who dug a small channel in 1983 in an attempt to flood the Bahia, but was forced by court order to close the channel a few weeks after it had been dug.

Since much of the the Bahia Grande's 10,000 acres is below sea level the hope is that the channels will provide enough fresh sea water to revive it and return it back to its original form. Already marine life has begun to take hold again which has brought many birds back to the area. Dusty arid soil has been renewed and native vegetation has begun to grow in areas that are not flooded.

We stopped mostly because I spotted brown and white pelicans together in the water. I have seen both types of pelicans but I had never seen them together like this so I found it interesting. However I was really surprised when I found a pair of American oystercatcher near the shore on my way back to the car. From a distance I at first thought that they were just another pair of laughing gulls but when I saw that bright orange bill I knew that I was looking at another lifer.

Pelican: Watery Wednesday

This past weekend I did several presentations for Girl Scouts at The Raptor Center. Since the programs was part of earning a merit badge of some sort we were given some subjects that the leaders wanted for us to talk about during our presentations. One thing they wanted us to talk about why birds have different types of beaks and how it effects the type of food that they eat. This worked right into my normal program since I usually talked about the raptors hooked beak, as it is one of three characteristics that make up a raptor. One of the other birds that I used as an example was the pelican. Most people are familiar with how pelicans swim across the water scooping up fish in their pouch style bill.
However the brown pelican is unique. Not only is it the only dark pelican they are also the only pelican that is found only in coastal waters. Although their bill is similar to the American white pelicans pictured above, the pic was taken in Florida in 2006, the brown pelican hunts by flying about 5 feet or so above the water and then diving straight down under the water. There it uses its bill to trap its prey while under the water. I photographed the brown pelican in California in 2007.