I spent most of this last February hanging out with a flock of American White Pelicans in Florida. They are migratory and spend their winters down south where the water doesn't freeze. A flock of about 300 took up residence at a lake in a residential area where they fascinated and thrilled the locals, who look forward to their arrival each season.
White Pelicans are scoop-feeders, moving around the water as a group and shoveling up whatever is in the water. Unfortunately, this includes trash.
The pelican in the photo above holds a plastic sauce container in its bill. When I saw this, I panicked, worried the pelican would swallow it. The container is the right size to go down the bird's gullet, but thankfully, the pelican just toyed with the container before discarding it.
I didn't notice this at the time, only realizing later when I was checking photos, but the pelican below has a hole in its pouch. The hole doesn't look that big, but can definitely interfere with the pelican's ability to swallow. I don't know what caused the tear, and hope it wasn't the result of human carelessness.
Suddenly, there was some drama when several pelicans began tussling over something.
They got so excited, as two pelicans played tug-o-war with the object, two others chomped the head of one of them. I'm not sure what the expected outcome of this was, but it was amusing to watch.
Arrrggg!
The object turned out to be a plastic shopping bag and I was horrified to see one of the pelicans try to swallow it.
The whole gang tried to grab the bag, which became submerged in the water.
Then it was revealed...the plastic bag contained a fish. No wonder they were trying to eat it.
My heart sank seeing this. It's likely the fish swam into the bag and died, then the pelicans found it and thought it was easy food.
This photo shows the pelican's mouth wide open and you can see how small the opening to the throat is, but the pelican is really trying to swallow the bag.
Again, I was thankful the pelican failed to swallow the trash, but it was really upsetting to see the attempt.
Meanwhile, a few feet away, another pelican caught a fish.
I noticed some commotion and thought the pelicans were going after the plastic bag again, but this time, it turned out to be a plastic McDonald's cup.
I never knew a pelican could resemble a Calla Lily.
This photo shows the crazy pelican bill. The top part is narrow and straight while the bottom is flexible.
Noooo!
This experience with the pelicans stressed me out as there was nothing I could do to stop them from eating the garbage they found in the water. This lake is maintained, but it seems you can't 100% prevent people from tossing their trash. At one end of the lake, there is a floating barrier to prevent garbage that might come out of a drainage pipe from going further into the lake. But these are curious birds and they flocked to that particular area because that's also where the fish were hiding.
I caught these pelicans doing something even more horrifying/interesting, which will be revealed in an upcoming post.
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