Brown Pelicans fish at a height of from twenty to thirty feet above the water, not hovering, but flying slowly about, and without a moment’s pause plunging on their prey with a force which would produce serious results if the bird’s breast were not well padded with cellular tissue between the skin and the flesh.
I observed that when the young birds struck at me the movement was accompanied by a widening or bowing out of the sides of the lower mandible, and it is doubtless the same muscular effort which turns the pouch of the diving Pelican into a scoop net, as it were, with an elliptical ring.[105]
By sunrise most of the fishers appeared to have departed, and at this time, whether because of the absence of so many of the adults or because it was their breakfast hour, a swarm of Fish Crows came from the mainland, apparently from both sides of the river, seeking what they might devour in the way of eggs or young Pelicans, and departing after several hours’ feasting.
About eight o’clock the fishers began to appear, coming, as they went, in dignified lines, which broke up as they reached the island, each bird going to its young. Then the outcry began, and the ensuing two hours were the noisiest of the day.
Pelicans are so well able to supply the wants of their families that, unlike smaller birds who bring to their ever-hungry broods only a mouthful at a time, they are not forced to feed their young at short intervals throughout the day, but the morning meal concluded, they do not again have to provide for their nestlings until afternoon. Immediately after breakfast, therefore, the parent birds went out into the bay to bathe, and the flapping of their wings as they dashed the water over themselves could be heard at a great distance. The bath concluded, the birds gathered in rows on the sand bars jutting out from the island, to vigorously preen their feathers, and doze in the sun; and then, at irregular intervals, bird after bird, prompted apparently purely by a love of exercise, or tempted by a possible resulting exhilaration, mounted slowly into the air until they had attained a great height, when, spreading their wings, they sailed majestically about on broad circles for hours at a time. I was at first inclined to connect this habit with the season of courtship, but observing several birds of the year, who had but recently learned to fly, join their elders, I came to the conclusion that the habit had no sexual significance, and was indulged in solely because the birds enjoyed it.
In the afternoon the fishing parties again started out, and after the resulting catch had been delivered to the clamoring young, the Pelican’s day’s work was concluded, and he betook himself to his favorite roost for the night. At dark a few Cormorants returned to the branches of a dead tree, a single Frigate, after carefully and repeatedly reconnoitering the situation, decided to take lodgings on a neighboring stub, and a Pelican Island day was ended.
Whether, as in the case of the Terns and Gannets previously mentioned, the Pelicans all return to their island on a certain day I can not say. Probably, however, the short duration of their migratory journey, and the fact that they come from both the north and the south, prevents them from joining many other birds en route. However, apparently most of the birds are warned at nearly the same time by a physiological change that the season has come for them to return to their nesting grounds. This is evidently in January, since in March a large number of the young on the island were found almost ready to fly, while some, as has been said, were already on the wing. There was, it is true, a great variation in the development of the young found, and indeed the birds were still laying, but I believe that the parents of these later broods had been robbed of their eggs by tourists.
A careful count yielded a total of 845 nests, which had evidently been built during the season, but only 251 of them were occupied. Most of the vacant nests were on the ground, and had been deserted by their tenants, who were now running about the island.
The 251 occupied nests contained eggs or young, as follows:
| 55 | nests | with | 1 | egg | each; |
| 63 | „ | „ | 2 | eggs | „ |
| 23 | „ | „ | 3 | „ | „ |
| 63 | „ | „ | 1 | young | each; |
| 46 | „ | „ | 2 | „ | „ |
| 1 | nest | „ | 3 | „ | „ |