P

elicans are among the largest living birds. With their long bills, their large webbed feet, short legs and large bulky bodies, they look clownish, but swimming they look like schooners, and flying they look like seaplanes. The Brown Pelican dives from as high as 70 feet up for a fish, while White Pelicans swim along, often in groups, with their bills in the water to scoop up fish. Pesticide runoff into seawater caused eggshell thinning in Brown Pelicans and they became an endangered species, but with enforced legal restrictions and modifications of many pesticides, they have made a comeback. Nesting pelicans pulsate their pouch, called the gular pouch, to lower their temperature and store partly digested fish for their young to feed right from the pouch.

Cool Fact: As it says in the famous limerick by Edward Lear, “A wonderful bird is the Pelican. His beak can hold more than his belly can. He can hold in his beak enough food for a week! But I’ll be darned if I know how the hellican?”

What other birds’ names start with P?