Pelican Peccadillos: A few pelicans linger

After the storm on Friday, a few pelicans were here yesterday, lumbering and loitering about on the Coquille river.  Only a few dozen after the thousands we rubbed elbows with in November and December.  An amazing number when you consider the population had dropped in California to fewer than 100 breeding pairs in 1972.   That total has now risen to more than 6,000 and the overall Pacific brown pelican population is at 70,680 breeding pairs, according to the USFWS’ Lois Grunwald.

Unlike these photos from December, the pelicans are now showing their winter breeding plumage with a distinctive dark brown nape, yellow head feathers and red gular throat pouch.  Non-breeding pelicans have the white hind-neck without the dark brown stripe.   Like other birds, these guys were not only threatened due to the high levels of DDT in the fish they eat, but also due to indiscriminate slaughter for their feathers.

Well, birding is a little slow right now, it's dark, dank, wet and really windy.  A glimpse of pelicans bathing in the river and preening on the pilings cheers me up and gets me racing home for the camera.

Tern's Terrific Travel: 50,700 miles a Year

Back in September, 2009, Harv and I took a trip to Newport for his niece's wedding and of course, some birding.

These Caspian Terns were spotted in the estuary near Hatfield Marine Center. The images are highly cropped as I stayed far away (behind the 600 mm with the 1.4 extender) so as not to disturb the family. There were two adults and a constantly begging juvenile. He must have been really hungry and not about to let anybody forget it. Both adults took turns swooping over the water, fishing for dinner, while the other adult stayed with the perpetually peeping pesterer. After a long flight, dinner must still be caught and presented to the chick.

More news on this subject (1/20/20)










Excerpt on the tern's trip from the NY Times :

In The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers report on the journeys of 11 terns fitted with transmitting devices. The birds, which began their trips in Greenland or Iceland in August, took two routes south, some hugging the African coast and others crossing from West Africa to Brazil to follow the South American coast. They stopped for about three weeks in the mid-Atlantic east of Newfoundland, a rich feeding zone.

Once they reached the Southern Ocean, they spent four months flying primarily east and west, again in areas that are rich in food. They returned in May and June having traveled, on average, about 44,000 miles. One tern totaled 50,700 miles, which is the longest animal migration ever recorded electronically.