CHAPTER XVI
THE PELICAN TRIP
We were still held back by the dilatory ways of our Indian friends, so to lose no time Preble and I determined to investigate a Pelican rookery.
Most persons associate the name Pelican with tropic lands and fish, but ornithologists have long known that in the interior of the continent the great white Pelican ranges nearly or quite to the Arctic circle. The northmost colony on record was found on an island of Great Slave Lake (see Preble, "N.A. Fauna," 27), but this is a very small one. The northmost large colony, and the one made famous by travellers from Alexander Mackenzie downward, is on the great island that splits the Smith Rapids above Fort Smith. Here, with a raging flood about their rocky citadel, they are safe from all spoilers that travel on the earth; only a few birds of the air need they fear, and these they have strength to repel.
On June 22 we set out to explore this. Preble, Billy, and myself, with our canoe on a wagon, drove 6 miles back on the landing trail and launched the canoe on the still water above Mountain Portage. Pelican Island must be approached exactly right, in the comparatively slow water above the rocky island, for 20 feet away on each side is an irresistible current leading into a sure-death cataract. But Billy was a river pilot and we made the point in safety.
Drifted like snow through the distant woods were the brooding birds, but they arose before we were near and sailed splendidly overhead in a sweeping, wide-fronted rank. As nearly as I could number them, there were 120, but evidently some were elsewhere, as this would not allow a pair to each nest.
We landed safely and found the nests scattered among the trees and fallen timbers. One or two mother birds ran off on foot, but took wing as soon as clear of the woods—none remained.
The nests numbered 77, and there was evidence of others long abandoned. There were 163 eggs, not counting 5 rotten ones, lying outside; nearly all had 2 eggs in the nest; 3 had 4; 5 had 3; 4 had 1. One or two shells were found in the woods, evidently sucked by Gulls or Ravens.
All in the nests were near hatching. One little one had his beak out and was uttering a hoarse chirping; a dozen blue-bottle flies around the hole in the shell were laying their eggs in it and on his beak., This led us to examine all the nests that the flies were buzzing around, and in each case (six) we found the same state of affairs, a young one with his beak out and the flies "blowing" around it. All of these were together in one corner, where were a dozen nests, probably another colony of earlier arrival.
We took about a dozen photos of the place (large and small). Then I set my camera with the long tube to get the old ones, and we went to lunch at the other end of the island. It was densely wooded and about an acre in extent, so we thought we should be forgotten. The old ones circled high overhead but at last dropped, I thought, back to the nests. After an hour and a half I returned to the ambush; not a Pelican was there. Two Ravens flew high over, but the Pelicans were far away, and all as when we went away, leaving the young to struggle or get a death-chill as they might. So much for the pious Pelican, the emblem of reckless devotion—a common, dirty little cock Sparrow would put them all to shame.