Saturday, March 17, 2012

The Beak Bump

Did a little research on the beak bump and here's what I found:

The American White Pelican  (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) male develops a fibrous plate on the upper part of their beak during the mating season. Apparently these boys are ready to "Rock & Roll".

American White Pelican



Couple of other things about the American White Pelican is that they don't dive for fish like the Brown Pelican, they scoop them from the surface, their bones are air-filled, and they have air sacs in their bodies. This separates them from other species of Pelican that dive from great heights to catch food.  

Height: 4 feet
Wingspan: 9 feet
Weight: 17 to 19 pounds

This bird had the second largest wingspan of any bird in North American with the exception of the California Condor. This is one BIG bird.  

And they are still eating the fish in the Trout Pond.

Mark
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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousMarch 17, 2012 at 1:42 PM

    Mark, darn things will continue to do so also. Meaning eating all the planted trout they can get their beaks around when they are feeding. I think I might have mentioned this before, but, one of our regional lakes here had the same problem. F&G changed the stocking strategy to only planting larger fish that would not be so vulnerable. Seemed to work well!

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  2. Brk TrtMarch 17, 2012 at 5:06 PM

    With a bill like that they could put a hurtin' on the fish population.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bill TrussellMarch 17, 2012 at 8:05 PM

    Mark
    Wow, these are some huge birds, I never realize they were this big. Thanks for sharing

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