White Pelican

Flock of Pelicans

As we were waiting to release birds at the annual Spring Raptor Release, last Saturday, a flock of white pelican. These birds traveled up the Mississippi flyway from their wintering grounds down south and will probably end up on breeding grounds in Canada, North Dakota or Wyoming. 

White Pelican

Ding Darling NWR

 The J.N Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge sits on Sanibel island on the gulf coast of Florida. The refuge was created in 1945 by Harry S Truman and was originally called the Sanibel National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge was renamed the J.N. Ding Darling NWR in 1967 in honor of Jay Darling five years after his death. Darling was a political cartoonist and environmentalist. He won two Pulitzer Prizes for his political cartoons which often supported environmental and conservation causes. Darling served on Roosevelt's President's Committee for Wildlife Restoration, also known as the Beck Committee. He also served as the director of the Bureau of Biological Survey where he championed the Duck Stamp Act of 1934.

The refuge consists of 6400 acres of mangrove forests, submerged sea grass beds, cordgrass marshes, and West Indian hardwood hammocks. This environmentally vital habitat was saved to protect endangered and threatened species as well as providing habitat for many species of migratory birds. Darling was part of the effort that stopped the state of Florida from selling the land to developers and is attributed with convincing Roosevelt to make it a national refuge. The refuge is a feeding, roosting and nesting area to over 220 species of birds including white pelicans, first pic, that migrate to south Florida for the winter. The refuge also provides habitat to other creatures such as alligators, crocodile, manatee and others. One creature that we found here that we had never seen before was the mangrove tree crab, above. The mangrove tree crab is the only crab other then the hermit crab that can climb trees. We found several of them on the mangrove trees, on the refuge, seemingly basking in the sun.   

American White Pelican

The American white pelican has the second longest wingspan of any bird in North America, only the California condor has a longer wingspan.White pelicans breed on inland lakes in the north central plains of the U.S. and Canada. They are a ground nesters, so to protect the eggs and young they nest in colonies on isolated islands in the lakes. They eat primarily fish which they scoop up in their large beak. Often times several pelicans will work cooperatively when feeding. During the winter they migrate to coastal regions in the southern U.S., Mexico and Central America.

Pelican Island NWR

 In the late 1800's Paul Kroegel, a German immigrant, was living on the banks of the Indian River Lagoon on the Atlantic Coast of Florida. His property looked out on a four acre mangrove island that was a rookery for  thousands of brown pelicans and other waterfowl. Kroegel respected the wildlife and put his life on the line protecting the island, gun in hand, from hunters. In 1901 the American Ornithologist's Union and the Florida Audubon Society pushed the state of Florida to pass legislation protecting non-game birds in Florida. Kroegel was one of four men hired by the Florida Audubon as a game warden responsible for protecting the birds. After two of the other game wardens were murdered in the line of duty, naturalist Frank Chapman and William Dutcher approached president Theodore Roosevelt to try and get help from the federal government. In March of 1903 President Roosevelt signed an executive order to set aside Pelican Island as the first federal bird reservation. Kroegel was hired on as the first national wildlife refuge manager. Roosevelt went on to establish 55 bird reservations and national game preserves which eventually became the National Wildlife Refuge System.

In the 1920's the pelicans abandon Pelican Island after a hurricane tore through the island and they did not return for several years. In the 1960's the refuge was threatened by proposed land development around the island but concerned residents pushed the Florida legislature to include 422 acres of surrounding mangrove islands as a part of the refuge.In 1968 the refuge was expanded to include another 4760 acres of surrounding wetland habitat. Pelican Island itself began to shrink over time, due to erosion, and went from 5.5 acres when it was found to a little over an acre in early 2000's. In 2001 a group of organizations partnered together to expand the shoreline using oyster shells as a wavebreak. Today thousands of people visit the refuge each year. When we visited it was not peak time so we did not see the huge numbers of waterfowl that nest in the refuge. We did still manage to find a few birds to photograph as well as some spiders, dragonflies, butterflies, a tortoise and a land crab. 

White Pelicans in Flight

The white pelican has the second longest wingspan of any bird  in North America. The only bird with a longer wingspan is the California condor. The white pelican breed on inland lakes in the north central United States and Canada. They migrate, sometimes in large flocks, down to the coastal waters of the southern United States, Mexico and parts of Central America. While we were down in Big Cypress during our recent Florida trip several flocks of pelicans converged filling the skies above us with white and black wings.

White Pelican Reflection

While I was staying over in Morris, MN, on an event for the Minnesota Odonata Survey Project, I got up early one morning. The sun had just risen when I spotted this white pelican in the water. The air was still and the pelican was barely moving. The new light of dawn hit the still water and turned it into glass giving me a perfect reflection.

American White Pelican

 The American white pelican is a large bird that breeds on fresh water lakes across the central part of the United States and Canada. They are mostly found in the prairie pothole region of the continent. They typically winter on the east or west coast, often in salt water marshes or lagoons. Unlike the brown pelican, the only other pelican in North America, these birds catch fish by scooping up water and fish in their large throat sack while they swim. They will often work together to heard fish into large groups which they can share.

Pelicans

There are two different species of pelicans that can be found in North America. The brown pelican is primarily found in coastal habitats along the East, West and Gulf Coast. The American white pelican breeds on fresh water lakes in the north central plains of the continent. Here in Minnesota white pelican breed on some of the lakes in the northern and western parts of the state. Here in the south eastern part of the state, where I live, we often see them while they are migrating to their wintering grounds in Mexico, Central America and along the southern coast of the United States.

White pelicans are large birds, one of the largest found in North America. Their diet consists mainly of fish which they catch by dipping their beak into the water as they swim across the surface. The bottom portion of the beak expands allowing them to capture a large volume of water. They then sift out the water and swallow the remaining fish and aquatic invertebrates. Often groups of white pelicans will hunt cooperatively swimming in circles to round the fish up. 

The Flight Of The Pelican by Craig Piercy

As the wings of the beautiful pelican spread

As the pelican lifts his head

As the pelican takes flight, I remember his plight

For as he moves in a flowing motion, it makes me think of some strange notion

When the pelican flies, where does he go?

Where's his home?

Will he be remembered and forever known?

I am reminded that it's like watching a child grow

Strong and steady, with a fight of plenty

Flowing through life with some minor tuberlance

Watching out, for any disturbance

The flight of the pelican

So inspiring, so freeing, so amazingly revealing

That's the beauty of the pelican in flight!

Tuesday Tweets

The white pelican is a bird that lives a dual existence. During half of the year it lives on fresh water lakes in the middle of North America where it nests and feasts on fish such as walleye and trout. The other half of the year it spends primarily as a coastal bird, spending the winter in the salt waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf Coast.

Welcome to Tuesday Tweets. To join in the fun, just post a photo of a bird on your blog then come here and enter your information in the inlinz tool down below. Don't forget to put a link back to here on your blog and the pretty little banner photo. Then visit all of the sites that participate to see a lot of cool bird pics.

Lake Vadnais

This morning I decided to head over to Lake Vadnais in search of the Townsend's solitaire that has been hanging out in the area. Lakes, rivers and other water ways are usually good areas for finding nature but Lake Vadnais seems to find more then its share of interesting visitors.

During the winter the road which runs between the lakes is cosed and not maintained except for trails for cross country skiing. The dusting of snow that we had over night, maybe another inch or two, covered the trees making them look like they were flocked. It also covered the trails making them a bit more difficult to travel, but since it was sunny and relatively warm, about 15 degrees, I did not mind much.

I did not find the solitaire on this trip but I did manage to photograph him back in November. The Townsend's Solitaire is a bird that is not very common here but once in a while one will hang around over the winter as long as it can find enough food.

In November at around the same time that the solitaire showed up Lake Vadnais was also playing host to a male long-tailed duck. This duck was hanging out with a group of common goldeneye until the lake froze up. Since long-tailed ducks and goldeneye are both diving ducks I spent several afternoons in November watching them dive for fish.

Vadnais must have had a really good year for fish because not only did we have a host of diving ducks in the fall back in July we had around 100 white pelicans that spent time on the lake. White pelicans are common in the western portions of Minnesota but usually we only see them during migration here in the Twin Cities that is why it was quite a surprise to see such a large number here in the middle of summer. It must have been the luck of Lake Vadnais.

Lac Qui Parle State Park

This summer I did some exploring to try and help out the Minnesota Odonata Survey Project. The mission of the MOSP is to survey the odonates, dragonflies and damselflies, in the state of Minnesota. Minnesota has been behind when it comes to surveying odonates especially in the more rural areas of the state.

One area that I found had not been very well surveyed was Lac Qui Parle County which is located in western Minnesota along the South Dakota border. There were only a few species recorded in this county, as well as several others around it, so I decided to take a day and explore Lac Qui Parle State Park.

It was a long drive. It took me over 6 hours to get to the park, although I did stop in one of the neighboring counties to collect a few specimens on my way. I spent a couple of hours in the park and I came away with about a dozen new county records. One of the not so common dragonflies that I found was this Halloween pennant.

There were other things besides dragonflies for me to photograph. The name Lac Qui Parle is a French translation of the name which the Dakota Sioux gave to the lake, Mde Iyedan. The English translation is " the Lake that Talks". It was named this because of the large numbers of waterfowl, especially Canada geese, that use the lake for staging during migration. Besides the migrating geese and ducks there is also a colony of white pelicans that nest on an one acre island in the park.
Lac Qui Parle was also the sight of a Christian Mission. The mission was built in 1835 and was adjacent to a trading post owned by Joseph Renville, a half French and half Dakota fur trader and explorer. The missionaries worked to teach the Dakota Christianity and western ways. They also worked to learn the Dakota language and develop a Dakota alphabet. However when Renville died in 1846 things went down hill and the mission was abandon in 1854. The building above is a replica of the original chapel that was built back in 1940s. It is registered under the National Register of Historic Places as well as with the American Presbyterian Historical Society.

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.