American White Pelicans on parade

A quick Tompkins Square hawk update: We have 3 chicks! I'll have more details next week. 

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Until then, it's only early May, but I'm declaring my Bird of the Year to be the American White Pelican. I've had a lot of quality time with them this year and have loved every minute of it. The result is a gazillion photos, so here are a few until the next installment.

I previously posted about what a pelican can do with its giant bill here, here, and here.

See how long their primary feathers are.

This gaggle of pelicans fixate on a Double-Crested Cormorant who scopes the area for fish. Both species take advantage of each other while fishing. I observed cormorants scavenging after the pelicans, as well as the pelicans following the cormorants to try and steal their catch.

I saw similar behavior with this Great Egret who took advantage of the pelicans as they corralled fish into a corner of this lake. The egret would quickly nab any fish that got pushed into its path.

Once the pelicans scooped up all the fish from the back end of the lake, they'd retreat and stage the whole maneuver all over again.

The thing that fascinates me about these guys is how they move so synchronously, and silently. 

There were 100+ pelicans present on this day, but you wouldn't know it if you kept your eyes closed. For such huge birds, the only noise they made was splashing when they landed in the water or tussled over food.

 

These photos don't convey the sheer size of these birds. Their wingspan is almost twice as wide as I am tall, and they have the second-largest average wingspan of any North American bird, after the California Condor. 

There's something so serene about watching these pelicans float around in the water. I found watching them to be a great way to de-stress.

They always seem to be facing the same direction.

Being so big, taking off from the water is a big production. The pelicans need a long runway and a lot of strength to achieve liftoff.

As I said, I have a gazillion White Pelican photos, so there will be more posts. And I haven't even finished processing photos of Brown Pelicans, so I look forward to sharing those as well.

 

 

Enchanted by Wood Storks

When the opportunity to hang out with Wood Storks comes along, I take it. Look at this beauty!

I hear people say they're ugly, but I think Wood Storks are beautiful. And they're really cool to watch. This group spent an afternoon by the side of a lake preening and enjoying the sun.

This one kept a close eye on me.

These birds are nearly as tall as me, so I can't help but be impressed with their presence.

I caught this stork flying with a fish (carp?) in its bill.

This is a different individual without a fish.

In flight, these birds are stunning with their long bill and legs, and huge black and white wings.

At sunset, I watched several storks drop in to spend the night. It's nice to know they're out there, silently watching over the wetlands.

Hatch time for Tompkins Square hawks

Some good news: the Tompkins Square red-tailed hawks had a hatch last week and there are at least two chicks. It's still too early to get a good look, but I managed to get a glimpse of little white fuzzy heads earlier this week.

The photos below were taken from a very long distance with a telephoto, and have been severely cropped. 

If you get out your magnifying glass, you can see two white fuzzy heads peeking above the edge of the nest directly under mom Amelia's face. 

They are slightly more clear in this image.

A day later, one of the heads is more visible as Amelia feeds the chicks.

Photo quality is not good because I was so far away and the sky was dark, but I'll take what I can get.

Over the next couple of weeks, we should be able to confirm how many hatchlings there are. 

 

Meanwhile, here are some recent photos of hawk parents Amelia and Charlie as they awaited the arrival of their hatchlings.

 

Amelia: 

Amelia on the roof of the Christodora:

Amelia on the church cross at Avenue A & 10th Street:

Amelia flying back into the park:

Charlie in the park:

Swooping towards me like Christo used to do:

Charlie on a sunny afternoon:

Carrying some leftover rat dinner through the park:

Charlie landing on the church cross on Avenue A & 10th Street:

Relaxing...

More to come...

Pelican-Duckling nightmare - Part 2

Following my previous post where I showed White Pelicans terrorizing a Muscovy Duck family, I have photos from another encounter which took place in the same lake a couple of days later. 

By this time, I'd discovered there were at least two mother Muscovy Ducks with around ten ducklings apiece. One afternoon, I found one of these families on the side of the lake furthest from the pelicans. As I tried to count the ducklings, a solitary pelican made a beeline towards us from the other side of the lake.

I saw the pelican coming and said out loud, "You better be a good pelican!"

Then this happened. 

It's hard to see, but there is a dark brown duckling just in front of the pelican's bill.

 

Here's a better look at it: 

Noooo!

 

I kept talking to the pelican, telling it to Stop it! and Bad pelican!

Like the previous incident, the pelican held the duckling in the end of its bill and toyed with it, but never tossed it back down its throat. 

The pelican seemed to be aware that I was watching it and that I didn't like what it was doing. It kept looking at me, whereas the pelicans that previously tormented the duckling never paid any attention to the people screaming on the sidelines.

The giant pelican followed the tiny duckling around. I almost thought maybe this was a friendly act, but the screaming of the duckling assured me it was terrified. 

The pelican kind of creeped me out with the way it kept looking at me.  

 

What does it want?

Although the pelican did not appear to be aggressive or menacing, the experience was just too much for the tiny duckling.

I mean, I would be screaming and trying to escape this scenario as well.

The pelican was definitely interested in the duckling, staying close on its tail as the poor little guy tried to swim away.

At this point, I was wondering if the pelican was just doing this to see what I would do about it. 

As before, there came a point when the pelican decided to just stop what it was doing and move away. The duckling was left to find its way back to its mom who had fled the scene as soon as it started.

I felt bad for the little guy and tried to point it in the direction of its mother. By this time, a couple of other people had also noticed what was happening and made attempts to reunite the family. The duckling took shelter in a clump of vegetation. 

I found the behavior of the pelicans really fascinating and asked other people in the area if they'd ever seen them go after ducks before. No one I spoke to had observed this previously, and I'm still trying to find answers. 

 

I spent nearly a month at this lake and when I arrived, there were about 300 pelicans. By the time I had to leave, their number had dwindled to 20-30. A few days later, the pelicans had all migrated north, leaving the ducks to swim freely in their lake.