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Pink-Backed Pelican | Pelecanus rufescens
Kleine pelikaan | Pelícano Rosado
The Pink-Backed Pelican is a greyish-white pelican with a pink-tinged back which, unlike the Great White Pelican, usually fishes alone or in loose parties and breeds in trees. In the region it is much scarcer and more tied to the east and north.
Voice
Silent away from the colony. At the nest it gives deep guttural grunts and bill-clapping; chicks beg with a soft whining squeak.
Recording: Alain Malengreau — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · converted to mono · xeno-canto
Identification
125–135 cm, wingspan 2.65 to 2.9 metres. Greyish-white with a pink wash on the back, rump and flanks, a shaggy grey crest on the hindcrown and grey-brown flight feathers. The bill is pale pink to yellowish with an orange nail, the pouch yellow to pink, and the skin in front of the eye shows a black spot with a yellow rim when breeding. The legs are yellowish to orange. In flight the underwing is grey with dark primaries, without the sharp black-and-white contrast of Great White Pelican. Juveniles are grey-brown with a white rump.
Confusion species
The Great White Pelican Pelecanus onocrotalus is larger and whiter, with black flight feathers that stand out sharply in flight against the white underwing, a darker blue-grey bill with a yellow pouch, and pink to orange legs. On swimming birds the forehead feather line helps too: straight across in Pink-backed, tapering to a point towards the bill in Great White.
Habitat
Freshwater lakes, quiet stretches of rivers, dams, floodplains, estuaries and mangroves; it avoids the open coast more than Great White Pelican. It usually fishes alone or in small groups, swimming and dipping the bill. It breeds in colonies in large trees near water, often alongside storks and marabous.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of southern Africa.
Range and movements
Mainly in the north and east of the region: the Okavango Delta and Chobe in Botswana, the Caprivi in Namibia, the Zambezi and Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe, Zambia (Bangweulu, Kafue, Luangwa), Malawi and Mozambique; in South Africa chiefly in northern KwaZulu-Natal, with the only regular breeding colony at Nsumo Pan in Mkhuze Game Reserve, and scarce in the lowveld. Vagrants reach the Namibian coast. Beyond the region across almost all of sub-Saharan Africa, Madagascar and south-western Arabia.
- Resident
- Summer visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- Winter visitor (c. Apr–Sep)
- Passage (Mar–Apr, Oct–Nov)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
Mkhuze Game Reserve and the St Lucia estuary in KwaZulu-Natal, or a boat trip on the Chobe or in the Okavango, where a few birds float on quiet river stretches. Watch for birds perched in large dead trees along the bank.
Conservation status
Not threatened, but few in number in the region. In South Africa it is nationally listed as Vulnerable because of the small breeding population, which depends on a handful of tree colonies. Felling of nest trees, disturbance, changes in water levels and poisoning are the main risks.
Scientific name
Pelecanus rufescens | Gmelin, 1789
Gmelin described the species in 1789 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'. rufescens is Latin for 'reddish' — for the pinkish tinge on the back and flanks in breeding plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from West Africa.