Bird studies with a camera

by Frank M. Chapman

The question why the birds should select this particular island in preference to the scores of others which, to the human eye, appear to be equally well suited to their needs, is a difficult one to answer. Perhaps no true selection is shown by the existing birds, which, as with many other island-inhabiting species, may be the survivors of a once more widely distributed species, who have been preserved by the protection afforded by their island home. Such a colony might owe its beginning to a pair of birds who were the true selectors of the site of the future colony. The preserving influences of the situation were potent from the beginning. The first brood reached maturity without mishap, and in response to the instinct which prompts a bird to return to the region of its birth, they, with successive generations, came back and eventually established the prevailing conditions.

The attachment of these Pelicans for their home affords a remarkable illustration of the power of habit. Ever since the Indian River region has been subject to annual invasion by tourists, among whom the man with the gun is conspicuous both by numbers and actions, the inhabitants of Pelican Island have been wantonly and, on occasions, brutally persecuted. Scarcely a day passes during February and March that one or more boat loads of tourists, perhaps from the mainland or a passing yacht, do not land on Pelican Island and thoughtlessly cause the death of many young birds by driving them from the vicinity of their nests; or, by frightening the brooding birds, they expose the newly hatched and naked nestlings to the roasting rays of the sun. The harm caused by these visitors, however, is not to be compared to that wrought by so-called “sportsmen,” who, in defiance of every law of manhood, have gone to Pelican Island and killed thousands of the birds simply because they afforded a ready mark for their guns. They had not even the excuse of a demand upon their skill, and must indeed have been very near the level of the brute to have found pleasure in killing birds which the merest novice with a gun would find it difficult to miss.

Perhaps even worse than this exhibition of pure savagery are the raids of the self-styled “oölogists,” who, in the name of science—save the mark!—have journeyed to Pelican Island with the express purpose of taking every egg they could lay their insatiable fingers upon, afterward to boast, in some journal devoted to reporting similar crimes, of the hundreds they had collected in so many hours.

So persistently have the Pelicans been molested that at times they have been foiled to desert their beloved island; but they have exhibited their attachment for it by establishing themselves on the nearest available islet, and on the first opportunity have returned to their native land.

It was in March, 1898, that my best assistant and I boarded the little sloop which was to take us to Pelican Island. Fortunately the birds were now in possession of their ancestral domain, and, as we approached, files of Pelicans were seen returning from fishing expeditions, platoons were resting on the sandy points, some were bathing, others sailing in broad circles high overhead. Soon we could hear the sound of many voices—a medley of strange cries in an unknown tongue. Arriving and departing on wings, the inhabitants of Pelican Island have little need of deep water harbors, and we were obliged to anchor our sloop about a hundred yards from the island and go ashore in a small boat.

101. Pelicans on ground nests.

No traveler ever entered the gates of a foreign city with greater expectancy than I felt as I stepped from my boat on the muddy edge of this City of the Pelicans. The old birds, without a word of protest, deserted their homes, leaving their eggs and young at my mercy. But the young were as abusive and threatening as their parents were silent and unresisting. Some were on the ground, others in the bushy mangroves, some were coming from the egg, others were learning to fly; but one and all—in a chorus of croaks, barks, and screams, which rings in my ears whenever I think of the experience—united in demanding that I leave the town. If I approached too near, their cries were doubled in violence and accompanied by vicious lunges with their bills, which were snapped together with a pistol-like report.^[102] As I walked from tree to tree, examining the noisy young birds that were climbing about the branches, I seemed to be passing from cage to cage in a zoölogical garden; and as I entered that part of the island where the nests were on the ground,^[101] every bird that could walk left its home, and soon I was driving a great flock of young Pelicans, all screaming at the tops of their voices.

102. Interviewing a group of young Pelicans.