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.

 

 

Pelican-Duckling nightmare - Part 1

In a previous post, I alluded to American White Pelicans demonstrating some interesting/horrifying behavior. The sequence of photos below shows what happened on an otherwise calm afternoon at the local lake. Some images are upsetting, but everyone came out ok in the end.

It started when I saw a mother Muscovy Duck swimming with her ducklings. To my surprise, she came very close to several pelicans who were foraging in the same corner of the lake. In the photo below, you can see that one of the pelicans has noticed the ducks and is approaching from the upper right. 

Several observers watched in horror as the pelican tried to scoop up the ducklings with its huge bill.

Nooooo!

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And there was nothing I could do but shriek.

The ducklings panicked and huddled close together, but they couldn't swim away fast enough.

Meanwhile, Mom took refuge in some plants and watched the pelican try to snatch her kids. There wasn't really anything she could do to defend them.

Once one pelican finds something, all the others have to come check it out. 

At one point, the duckling tried to make an escape...

But it was quickly scooped up by another pelican. All together, there were about 20 pelicans in that area and they had the ducks cornered.

By this time, observers on the edge of the lake were screaming. Everyone had spent the last several weeks enjoying the pelicans and watching them calmly float around the lake. Now they appeared to be monsters.

Each pelican had its turn taking the duckling into its mouth.

Aaaaa!

We really thought we were witnessing a horrible death.

I can only imagine what was running through the duckling's mind at this moment.

Then, without warning, the pelicans just...stopped. The little duckling quickly paddled away to its family who were hiding in some vegetation.

What was interesting about this incident was the pelicans never tried to toss the duckling back down their throats. They kept it in the tips of their bills, which made me think they were more curious about the duckling and not into eating it. 

 

After that trauma, you would think the mother duck would lead all her ducklings away from the scary pelicans, but no! She kept hanging around close to them, so of course another pelican came along to check them out. 

Here we go again.

A cormorant came over to see what all the fuss was about.

Finally, mother duck took off with her brood. I kept trying to count them all to make sure she ended with the same number of ducklings she had in the first place. No one was missing.

People who saw this were shocked and shaken, but we were all glad (and puzzled) to see the pelicans let the duckling go free. I wondered why they didn't eat the baby duck. I mean, they could, so why not? A local birder speculated that it was unusually early for ducklings (February) and, as the pelicans usually migrate away from the lake at this time of year, it's possible they've never encountered the baby ducks in this location before and were just curious about them. I really don't know.

 

This turned out not to be an isolated event, as I saw it happen again a couple of days later. I'll post those photos when I'm done processing them.

 

 

Early-season birds

Here are a few highlights of early spring season birds seen along the East Coast.

Green Heron: 

Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher:

Black-Necked Stilt:

Sitting on its nest:

Loggerhead Shrike:

Purple Martins:

Eastern Phoebe:

Great Egret:

Pileated Woodpecker:

Black-Bellied Plover:

Semipalmated Plover:

Sanderlings and a Dunlin:

Sanderling:

Willets:

Cattle Egret:

Black Skimmers:

Hooded Warbler:

Black-Bellied Whistling Ducks: