American White Pelican

The American White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) is a very large bird. Which grows up to 50-70 inches; this is a white bird with black wing tips and a massive orange bill. They have a wingspan of approximately 3 m. their flight is considered to be graceful, moving their wings in slow controlling strokes.

The Brown Pelican usually dives for its food; but the American White Pelican does not follow this act. The white pelican follows something called the cooperative fishing. Each bird eats more than 4 pounds of fish a day, mostly carp, chubs, shiners, perch, catfish, and jackfish.

White Pelicans live in islands and they nest in colonies of several hundred pairs. They mostly live on islands of remote brackish and freshwater lakes of inland North America. The female bird lays its eggs in the ground itself wherever it finds a shallow depression. Both the parent birds incubate.

Nowadays white pelicans are becoming extinct because of the shooting by the poachers and this is the cause of mortality. These birds are very sensitive to human inhabitation and thus they will abandon their nests if human presence is identified.Migratory Bird Treaty of 1972 protects these species.

This bird’s scientific name is derived from Latin and Greek, the name this species combines Pelecanus, the Latin for pelican, with erythrorhynchos, derived from the Greek words erythros meaning red, and rhynchos meaning beak.