All species › Pelicans, herons and ibises › Pelicans › Brown Pelican
Brown Pelican | Pelecanus occidentalis
Bruine pelikaan | Pelícano pardo
The Brown Pelican is a dark marine pelican that fishes by plunging bill-first into the sea from a height. In the Caribbean it can be seen along almost every coast, on mooring posts in harbours, over bays and in lines low over the waves. The birds of the West Indies belong to the smallest subspecies, Pelecanus occidentalis occidentalis.
Voice
Adults are almost silent away from the colony. At the colony they give low grunts and groans such as hrraa-hrra; nestlings beg with high squeals.
Recording: Isain Contreras Rodríguez — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
100–137 cm, with a wingspan of around two metres; birds in the region lie at the lower end of that range. The body is grey-brown and the upperparts streaked silver-grey. The bill is long and flat, with a dark pouch. Outside the breeding season head and neck are white and the crown yellowish. In breeding plumage the hindneck and nape are dark chestnut-brown, separated from the white head by a white stripe along the side of the neck. Juveniles are plain grey-brown on head, neck and back, with a pale belly. It flies with the head drawn back, alternating a few beats with long glides, often in lines just above the water.
Confusion species
American White Pelican Pelecanus erythrorhynchos, a rare winter visitor, is larger and white with black primaries, and fishes while swimming in groups rather than diving. At a distance young Brown Pelicans can recall Brown Booby Sula leucogaster, but that is much smaller, with a slender pointed bill and a sharply defined white belly.
Habitat
Coastal waters, bays, shallow lagoons, mangroves and harbours; seldom far out at sea. It fishes by diving bill-first from a few metres to more than ten metres with the wings half folded, scooping fish up in the pouch. It breeds in colonies on small islets and cays, in mangroves, low scrub or on rock ledges.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Present year-round along the coasts of almost the whole region: the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Greater Antilles, the Cayman Islands, the Virgin Islands, the Lesser Antilles, the ABC Islands and Trinidad and Tobago. Breeding colonies are scattered, often on uninhabited islets offshore. Beyond the region along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts from the United States to Venezuela, and along the Pacific coast from Canada to Ecuador.
- Resident
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In almost every harbour and fishing port in the region, where birds wait on posts and boats for fish scraps. Diving is best watched over clear, shallow bays in the morning, when shoals of small fish come to the surface. Breeding colonies are sensitive to disturbance and are best viewed from the water at a distance.
Conservation status
Not threatened. In the United States the species crashed in the 1960s through DDT and has since recovered. In the Caribbean the colonies are small and vulnerable to disturbance, egg collecting and mangrove cutting; birds become entangled in fishing lines and nets.
Scientific name
Pelecanus occidentalis | Linnaeus, 1766
Linnaeus described the species in 1766 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. The genus Pelecanus was introduced in 1758 by Linnaeus. Pelecanus is the Latin form of the Greek pelekan 'pelican', which itself derives from pelekys 'axe'. occidentalis is Latin for 'western', after its occurrence in the New World. The specimen the first description was based on came from Jamaica.