Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"

I bring you another pelican, this time the Great White, Pelecanus onocrotalus. This is one of the largest of the pelicans, indeed one of the largest species of flying birds. They can reach 15 kg/33 lbs in weight, 175 cm/5'9" in length, with a wingspan of over 3.6m/12'. My painting shows a bird in breeding condition, with the forehead swollen to become a knob above the base of the bill. Breeding birds also have their plumage tinged pinkish, and a yellow patch at the front of the neck. This species occurs from Eastern Europe into central Asia as far as Mongolia, and southward to India and most of sub-Saharan Africa. In the northern parts of its range, it breeds during the summer, then migrates southward to warmer climes in the winter. In Africa, it occurs as a migrant as well as a resident.

A Symbol of Self-Sacrifice

A strange legend about pelicans is widespread in both Asia and Europe. According to this, a mother pelican once had chicks that either died of hunger or that she killed herself, punishing them too harshly for their insistent begging. Overcome with remorse, she pecked at her own breast until she opened a wound; then she revived them by feeding them her own heart's blood. This legend has led to a pelican being incorporated into the coat or arms of many noble families. It's hard to figure out just what this legend is based on; it might be because the pouch of one pelican species, the Dalmatian, is blood-red in the breeding season. Seeing chicks feeding from the red pouch might have suggested them being fed on the bird's own blood.

The Bill that holds more than the Belly Can

Great White Pelicans are typical pelicans. Their characteristic feature is the huge pouch they have below their bill. The pouch is supported by the two flexible halves of the lower jaw, that can bend outwards to open the pouch up wide. The pouch is not used for storing fish, but for catching them. Pelicans often hunt fish with coordinated teamwork. A group will form a line swimming across a lake; they churn the water with their feet and fish will of course try to flee before them. But they have a plan. The line of pelicans will methodically herd the fish into a shallow part of the lake where they will concentrate and become trapped, making them easy to catch. The pelicans may manoeuvre into a horseshoe formation, or meet another line of pelicans coming from the opposite direction, as additional ways of catching fish. Along the coast, they trap fish in rock pools. To catch them, they plunge their heads into the water with the bills open wide; the bill itself is very sensitive and can sense the movements of fish under the water. Once the pelican has engulfed one or more fish, it will close down the upper part of its bill and pull the sides of the lower jaw in again to expel the water that it has also 'caught'. The amount of water in the pouch can weigh more than the pelican itself! So carefully the pelican will drain the water from its pouch while keeping the fish. Fish will be swallowed then. The pelican tends to shift the fish around until it can swallow it head first, so that the spines in its fins (which usually face backward) don't get caught in the pelican's throat. At least once, this strategy has backfired. A pelican caught a huge fish and started swallowing it, head first of course – but then in mid-swallow realized the fish was too big to swallow, and tried regurgitating it. But the fish's spines firmly wedged it in so that it couldn't go the other way, and the pelican choked to death.

Because they fish so efficiently, pelicans actually don't spend much time fishing. After an hour or so in the morning, they've caught enough to last them the rest of the day. They spend the time sun-basking, bathing, preening, or just standing around doing nothing. At least some of the time they will perform special stretching exercises to keep their pouches in good trim. They even sometimes turn their pouches inside-out, over the front of their lower neck, which looks like they're pushing their spines out of their mouths!

Because pelicans are so large, and live in groups, which need plenty of fairly large fish to feed on, they only occur on expansive bodies of water. The water mustn't be too deep, or the fish can easily escape by diving down. Pelicans can't follow them, being too buoyant for deep diving. They are mostly found on large lakes in steppe or savannah regions, including some of the alkaline lakes in Africa's Great Rift Valley. They sometimes occur along the coast and may hunt in the sea or the brackish water of a large river estuary. They require safety features to protect them against mammalian predators when they nest. This can be large, dense reed-beds, or islands surrounded by water in a lake, or even off-shore islands such as they use along the coast of South Africa and Namibia. They make their nests of reeds and other bits of vegetation, or sometimes lay their eggs on the bare rock of an island. Pelican colonies in suitable safe sites in the past numbered millions of birds; today they're much reduced, but still could number in the thousands in some parts of Africa. Pelicans have a few dependable sites where they breed every year; there are other sites, such as temporary lakes and pans that only fill up in years of unusual rainfall, that they use only when suitable. Sometimes a small wave of intrepid 'pioneer' pelicans will move into a newly-suitable site first; when they've successfully nested and started breeding, proving everything to be in order, they are followed by additional waves of pelicans.

Pelican chicks are born with bare leathery skin and are rather ugly. Their parents bring them semi-digested 'fish soup' that they regurgitate for the chick. When it has grown a bit, it is able to swallow regurgitated fish whole. In some colonies, pelicans nest alongside other birds like cormorants, and almost-fully-grown pelican chicks sometimes eat the chicks of these birds, to the extent that they can be a serious threat to some of the more endangered cormorant species.

This causes a conundrum for bird conservationists, since pelicans themselves are quite endangered. As I've mentioned, they used to occur in huge colonies, the surviving ones now being much-reduced. Their range in Europe has contracted markedly, and some of the wintering grounds of European birds in Africa, such as over much of Egypt, is now unsuited to them. The large wetlands they need have been much 'invaded' and modified by humans. They now compete with humans for fish. Their nesting colonies are often disturbed by human activity. They also suffer badly from pollution by chemicals and pesticides. In many places they're now protected by laws. At present, 80% of this species' breeding population occurs in Africa. In South Africa and Namibia, they benefit from the construction of 'guano platforms' offshore on which they can nest in safety. Along with other seabirds, they produce copious droppings that accumulate on these platforms and that can be gathered every now and then, for use as fertilizer. With continued protection, the pelicans are fairly assured of a future.

Willem

10.08.20 Front Page

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