These days, it’s fortunate for us birders that our hobby can
be a mostly solitary pursuit. It’s also
fortunate that group texting and social media make it possible for us to alert
one another to unusual bird species occurring locally, so that everyone can
have a chance to see rarities without traveling together in large groups. I am part of one of these birding networks—although
I don’t often think of it in that way—in northeast-central Mississippi, and
several of the interesting sightings that I had this spring were the result of
following up on messages from local birders.
Some of these birders were able to see birds that I reported, as well,
so everyone benefited.
One of these sightings was of a Brown Pelican at Columbus
Lake on May 4. After I received messages
from friends who had seen this bird, I decided to head over to the lake that
afternoon to try my luck at spotting it, too.
I knew that the pelican was rare, of course; Brown Pelicans are
coastal birds that are seldom seen very far inland. They are considered rare but regular vagrants
in inland Mississippi. Interestingly, the
individual birds that wander from the coast are usually the immatures and
subadults—maybe because they are testing their limits, as young humans tend to
do? It’s a plausible enough theory. Regardless of their reasons for straying
inland, Brown Pelicans tend not to remain there for very long.
Finding an enormous water bird on an open lake doesn’t sound all difficult, maybe, but I didn’t immediately see the rare pelican when I arrived. I did see a Bald Eagle, an Osprey, and several Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons winging through, though. A flock of White Ibises flew overhead, and several songbirds—a Brown Thrasher, a Yellow Warbler, an Orchard Oriole, a few Red-winged Blackbirds, etc.—added their music to the ambiance.
After a few minutes of searching, I spotted the Brown Pelican
landing on the open water.
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| I took this photo after the pelican landed. |
It was settled there for less than a minute before flying
off to a sandbar with over a dozen American White Pelicans. Although it’s difficult to determine scale
from the photos, this bird’s wingspan is over six feet. It’s a subadult, so its coloration is duller
than a fully adult Brown Pelican’s would be.
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| Up again... |
Below this paragraph is a picture showing the Brown
Pelican hanging out with a bunch of white pelicans. Unlike the Brown Pelican, the American White Pelican
is a mostly inland species that prefers freshwater and brackish habitats to
saltwater ones. During winter and
migration, there are often hundreds of American White Pelicans on large lakes
in inland Mississippi. I suspect that
the lone Brown Pelican’s interactions with the American White Pelicans were
limited to roosting, since the two species have wildly different foraging
behaviors; white pelicans scoop up prey while swimming, while Brown Pelicans
usually fly high above the water and dive for their fish. Really, they’re both impressively adapted to
their typical environments.
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| In this image, the Brown Pelican is about the third pelican from the right. |
The Brown Pelican seemed pretty content on the sandbar, and
it was getting a little late in the day, so I left the lake. The pelican left the lake, too—after several
days of residence there. I can’t say
exactly where it is now, but I hope it made its way back to the coast. Maybe it has been observed in passing (as it
would be an unsurprising sighting there) by the coastal birders who are busy touching
base with each other—at a distance!—with their bird reports.
