America's Two Pelican Species Are So Similar, Yet So Different: Wild Birds Revealed

Pelicans are one of the most iconic and easily recognizable birds in North America. With their huge throat pouch, long bill, and big wings, everybody knows what a pelican looks like, but we actually have two species. Brown pelicans are seabirds. They're almost like a big clumsy tern, diving for food and flying low over the waves. But white pelicans are almost like a big oversized dabbling duck that feeds in groups in fresh water and plunges its head underwater to catch food. We are Russ and Tim Lehman, on assignment for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, exploring how these two species can have such similar looking bodies that live two very different lives. Welcome to Wild Birds Revealed. OM System offers birders and nature photographers lightweight, weather sealed gear with strong image stabilization and powerful super telephoto lenses, all built for handheld freedom to capture amazing moments. According to a surfing magazine, the number one surfers are dolphins and the number two in the world are the pelicans. Why is that? Because they're so good at wave riding. These are huge birds with broad, seven-foot wingspans that give them so much lift they can actually ride the air currents being pushed in front of a wave. Flying low over the water, they gracefully follow the contour of the swell, matching It's stretching its bank until it closes in on shore and they pop over the top and pick up the next one. It's late January and brown pelicans are crowding the cliffs of Southern California. Adults are in their vibrant breeding plumage with a sharp yellow and white head, silvery back and feathers, and a beautiful bright red throat pouch. The constant activity and sheer number of these huge birds is an amazing spectacle. But what we've really come to see is the brown pelican's feeding behavior. We were just driving around the road scouting and we just saw Some pelicans diving into the water, so we are scrambling to try and film it now. Brown pelicans are known for their spectacular plunge dive, folding their wings high in the air and plummeting towards the surface of the ocean to catch schooling fish by surprise. Watching a big bird like a pelican crash into the water can look pretty clumsy the first time you see it, but it's actually a highly controlled and amazingly accurate move. It was our goal to film the dive in detail, but our first few days of trying only gave us a few distant glimpses, so we hit pause for a few days and headed inland to find the brown's bigger cousin. In stark contrast to brown pelicans, American white pelicans prefer shallow water, often aggregating on inland lakes or estuaries. They're also much larger, up to twice as heavy as a brown pelican, With an incredible nine foot wingspan that allows them to soar as high as 30,000 feet and migrate 4,000 miles or more each year. These pelicans are breeding too and our still cameras allow us to show off the distinctive horn that both males and females have grown to indicate that they're actively breeding. They'll shed this horn shortly after the breeding season and regrow it next year. As we traveled around Southern California, we found some huge aggregations of white pelicans. But it wasn't until we got a tip from another eBird user that we were able to find what we were looking for. We finally found a group of pelicans that seems to be doing the communal feeding behavior that we're looking to capture. These American white pelicans are working as one cohesive unit. They fan out across the lake, covering as much ground as possible until one spots a school of fish. Suddenly, They jump into action. These big birds spiral inwards, herding the fish into a tighter and tighter circle before lunging in unison. They pause as one, then all of a sudden, some fish are spotted by the shore. The pelicans race over and form a huge line, crapping the fish against the bank and turning their bill sideways so they can fit in the shallow water. The fish scramble, but they can't escape. Pelicans on one side, egrets on the other. And then they're off again, gradually working their way into the shallow corners of the lake where the fish will have no escape. It's a feeding frenzy with over a hundred pelicans lunging in synchrony and working as one to catch fish. Brown pelicans fish in a completely different way. We've gotten some distant shots of pelicans diving into the water but Very far away, so we're going out on a boat to try and... Getting up close. In these rich Pacific waters, massive schools of sardines or anchovies sometimes get pushed to the surface by fish or dolphins feeding below. When this happens, pelicans, cormorants, and gulls show up in mass. If we could be on a boat in the middle of one of these frenzies, we might be able to get the shot we'd been dreaming of. And this time, we got lucky. Time to freak out. We found it. Whipped into a frenzy, dozens of pelicans hit the water one after another. There was so much action, we could barely focus on one pelican at a time to watch its dive. But we quickly saw that what looks like a clumsy crash is skillful and precise. A brown pelican watches the school from high above the waves. Spotting a fish, it dives at a super steep angle, minimizing light refraction to improve its aim. Gaining speed, it always turns to the left, protecting its trachea and esophagus, which run down the right side of its body. Right before impact, it throws its wings back before shooting its long neck forward. It all adds up to a highly skilled and impressively accurate hunting style. Adult pelicans are successful on three of every four dives. In a way, the frenzied nature reminded me of the white pelicans and their chaotic chase to catch fish. It's just that the white pelicans live in a horizontal world, and they fish as a team in shallow water, while the brown pelicans are individualists, living in a vertical world as they plunge into the deep. It's so remarkable how two birds that look so alike, so gawky and unmistakable, could have such wildly different life histories. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Wild Birds Revealed. Check out more of our episodes on the Cornell Lab YouTube channel and at allaboutbirds.org.