A Funny Old Bird is The Pelican...
...Its beak can hold more than its belly can.
“A funny old bird is the pelican…
…Its beak can hold more than its belly can.”
Spike Milligan
In my humble opinion, of all the birds I have seen plying their way through the skies, the Australian Pelican Pelecanus Conspicillatus would have to be one of the most graceful, elegant and powerful.
For those of you who live outside Australia and think you know what a pelican looks like, think again. Pelecanus Conspicillatus is a far more beautiful bird than the mud-coloured pelicans of North America and Europe. No, Conspicillatus is a beautiful, large, snow-white bird with jet black trimmings and large pupils set inside orange-yellow eyes that almost seem to convey emotion.
These majestic birds with their massive wingspans can be seen over many Australian waterways, coastal, near coastal and inland. Anywhere there is a large enough body of water to support fish, it's probably fair to say that Pelecanus Conspicillatus would not be too far away.
The prevalence of these magnificent waterway birds is probably best summed up by the "Status:" assigned to the sub-species on Wikipedia's page relating to pelicans. Whereas some pelicans have "Status: Threatened", or "Status: Near Threatened", good ol' Conspicillatus has "Status: Least Concern."
In my mind, that status sums up Conspicillatus perfectly.
"Least concern."
I mean, does this Conspicillatus look like it is concerned about anything?
This specimen is sitting on the spot where friends and I regularly ate lunch during our University days, and it looks to be laughing at the photographer. Where once we were menaced by rabid geese (well, they did not have rabies, but they were sure dangerous), today’s students have Conspicillatus for company down by the footbridge.
Some Conspicillatus (Conspicillatii?) have such little concern that they actively and brazenly harass nearby humans for food, or anything that even looks like food. Families of these pelicans that congregate on riverbanks of small country towns have little to no fear and will walk up, plain as day, to take food off a picnic table, and sometimes even straight from the hands of any unwary eater.
Indeed, whenever we have taken friends to Mannum, a small riverside hamlet on Millewa, the Ngarrindjeri name for the River Murray on its southernmost stretches, an hour or so from Adelaide, we always ensure to take N+1 sandwiches with us, where N is the total number of people in our party who will be eating sandwiches.
Is this some sort of food-based implementation of the Principle of Mathematical Induction?
No.
It is because that no matter how many times we tell our guests on the day to be watchful of pelicans, and tell them that pelicans will steal food out right out of their hands, one of these flying beauties will waddle up and somehow, we know not how, manage to steal a sandwich straight out of the hands of one of our guests.
A single sandwich theft in broad daylight is usually enough to ram home to our guests that we were actually serious about what we said, and that the signs placed around the reserve that say "Warning: Pelicans will steal food from you as you eat it" (or words to that effect) are not just there for show.
Our son remembers clearly the day we were at this same reserve and he was walking around eating a chicken drumstick, only for said drumstick to be snatched from his hand by a bold Conspicillatus raider. Things like that, well, he will never forget, and nor will I, as I tried to calm a screaming seven year old while trying so hard to hold back fits of laughter myself!
With near-360 degree vision, these avian protein thieves can always find a way in to grab food before beating a hasty retreat with their prize safely ensconced in their beak.
The sheer comically brazen nature of these birds as they waddle up and then in a flash thrust their bills in to steal food from unwitting picnic-goers is counterpointed by the breathtaking majesty of these animals in flight.
Conspicillatus is the consummate long-distance, high-efficiency flying professional…
Conspicillatus is the consummate long-distance, high-efficiency flying professional, and whether taking advantage of ground-effect to fly at high speed mere centimetres above the surface of a river, or circling in the skies rising ever upwards on hot thermals, it almost appears to those watching that these animals are not exerting themselves at all when they are flying. They are only of a medium weight, typically no more than eight kilograms, but with their wingspan of nearly two and a half metres they have sufficient wing surface area for lift as well as powerful muscles for thrust.
A flock of Conspicillatus circling in a thermal is a true joy to behold, verging on the hypnotic, as one finds oneself thinking "any moment now they will fly off", yet they continue to circle.
For me though, the most wonderful way to see these birds in flight is to be located above them, standing on a clifftop that overlooks the river, watching them fly between the river and clifftop.
My folks have a house built on a cliff top just north of Mannum, with a drop of some twenty metres (albeit down a steep incline, not a direct vertical plummet!) to the river below. Waking one morning, I looked out of the bedroom door and saw a magnificent Conspicillatus just minding its own business, flapping its wings occasionally as he (or she, I can't tell, and I challenge anyone else to at a distance) flew some height between river and clifftop, following the river upstream like it was on some sort of freeway that had yet to see rush hour.
Which in a way Millewa is for these beautiful birds. A freeway from the coast to areas inland, frequented by Conspicillatus and common seagulls alike. A high speed road that affords guidance and direction, as well as take-away food anytime Conspicillatus needs a meal.
Like many Australians, my love of Conspicillatus began when as a child I read Colin Thiele’s hauntingly beautiful novel, “Storm Boy”. The story centres around a who rescues three pelicans and raises them from chicks to adulthood.
And any Australian child of the 1970’s will instantly recognise the names Mr Proud, Mr Ponder, and Mr Percival.
As the chicks grow to independence, the boy was told by his father to release the pelicans into the wild, and he dutifully did so. Mr Proud and Mr Ponder flew away, never to be seen again, but Mr Percival remained, and he and the boy had subsequent adventures that include a dramatic off-shore rescue where Mr Percival carries a rescue line to a sinking boat.
Mix in 1970’s flavoured environmentalism, some rough-and-tumble characters and a stoic Indigenous elder who helps the boy connect with the pelicans and The Coorong where they all live and you have a story for the ages.
The novel was filmed in 1976, and the pelicans that played in the film became attractions at the old Marineland water park at West Beach in Adelaide until it closed, whereupon the pelicans were relocated to the Adelaide Zoo, there to see out the rest of their natural lives.
While not as long-lived as some cockatoos that see out a century, Conspicillatus puts in a not too shabby effort and can live upwards of thirty or more years, so two generations of Adelaide children may have met these feathered movie-stars. The pelican that played Mr Percival passed away in 2009 at the ripe old age of 33, certainly unaware of the role he played in the literary lives of so many Australian children, probably unaware of why everyone seemed to make such a fuss over him.
But old pelicans never die… they just live on in younger pelicans…
Watching Conspicillatus feed in the wild is an exhilarating experience. The bird will be watching for a fish or other small water animal, then commence circling, almost as if it wants to be sure that the quarry is worth the effort, then in less than the time it takes to blink the bird will dive down somewhat ungainly, beak at the ready, hit the water and swallow up its prey.
That is, of course, when they are not busy stalking, plotting and then executing sandwich thefts.
…front-row seats to scores of Conspicillatus as they circled on thermals, swooped down onto the river to feed, or just lazed around on the banks as if they had nothing better to do. Which they probably didn’t.
As a child, my siblings and I spent many happy days with relatives at Waikerie, another small town on Millewa, and we’d have front-row seats to scores of Conspicillatus as they circled on thermals, swooped down onto the river to feed, or just lazed around on the banks as if they had nothing better to do.
Which they probably didn’t.
And this is the reason why though “Storm Boy” has vivid imagery of pelicans on The Coorong, a beautiful, vast and desolate yet also strangely vibrant stretch of water that parallels the coast south from Meningie towards Kingston South-East, for me, Conspicillatus will always have their home in the skies above Millewa.
Can I like my own posts? Well, why not?