Friday Night Photos Pelican Place Edition
Submitted by Socialprogressive on Fri, 02/17/2023 - 5:00pmHappy Friday everyone. Hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.
Just like with the Brandt's Cormorants I posted last week, it's also breeding season for the Brown Pelican.
From All About Birds https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Brown_Pelican/overview
The Brown Pelican is a comically elegant bird with an oversized bill, sinuous neck, and big, dark body. Squadrons glide above the surf along southern and western coasts, rising and falling in a graceful echo of the waves. They feed by plunge-diving from high up, using the force of impact to stun small fish before scooping them up. They are fairly common today—an excellent example of a species’ recovery from pesticide pollution that once placed them at the brink of extinction.
Pelicans incubate their eggs with the skin of their feet, essentially standing on the eggs to keep them warm. In the mid-twentieth century the pesticide DDT caused pelicans to lay thinner eggs that cracked under the weight of incubating parents. After nearly disappearing from North America in the 1960s and 1970s, Brown Pelicans made a full comeback thanks to pesticide regulations.