Look to the sky for white pelicans

One of the many benefits of living in Florida is enjoying the vast variety of wildlife.

Bald eagles are a routine sight now over much of the state; black bears have made a major resurgence and are everywhere now it seems; species such as deer and wild turkey are common and so are many others.

One species you may miss that’s migrating into the state now is the white pelican.

A few days ago Lynn Haven resident Diane Ramsey captured a flock on camera as the birds rested on North Bay near Panama City.

Just like a variety of other migratory species, white pelicans leave their summer homes in the West and Midwest and head south as winter approaches.

While our common brown pelican has a 6½ – 7½-foot wing span, white pelicans have a much larger wing span, stretching as much as 9½ feet as they fly.

White pelicans are also substantially larger, weighing up to 17 pounds.

Brown pelicans rarely weigh more than four pounds.

Stephen Nesbitt spent 35 years working as a wildlife biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and the former Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission.

Most of his work was with brown pelicans and bald eagles.

He’s retired now but still does a significant amount of contract work with the FWC on these species.

He says white pelicans nest in early summer along freshwater lakes in northern California, Utah, North Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska and well into Canada.

Unlike brown pelicans, which are “plunge divers,” white pelicans sit on the surface and scoop all sorts of small freshwater fish such as various minnows, suckers, shiners and anything small that is unfortunate enough to swim near them.

Nesbitt said it’s in the fall as temperatures begin to drop that white pelicans begin a southward migration that can lead them to Florida, Louisiana, Texas or Mexico.

“To be such big birds, they’re fairly light but they have a big wingspan. Like a lot of birds, they migrate following fronts on high pressure. They catch the thermals and they can go forever,” he said.

Nesbitt said white pelicans likely follow the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico, then by the thousands, they head either east or west, probably returning to places they’ve been going to for thousands of years.

The pelicans that Ramsey photographed are likely to wind up in any number of places in Florida.

Nesbitt said it’s common to see wintering flocks near Cedar Key on the Gulf Coast, but most spend their winter months on lakes and rivers - from the St. Johns River down to the Kissimmee chain of lakes and Lake Okeechobee.

Nesbitt said one noteworthy characteristic of both white and brown pelicans is their sensitivity to harmful chemicals or pesticides in the water. He said they are the “canary in the coal mine” when it comes to dangerous pollutants.

Just a few years ago dozens of white pelicans and several other species of birds died when they tried to feed on a flooded vegetable farm near Lake Apopka in North Central Florida.

The culprit - highly toxic pesticides - bound in the soil until the lake was filled.

Around 1960, a similar pesticide spill or case of illegal dumping cost Louisiana virtually all of its brown pelicans, according to Nesbitt.

Overnight, he said, almost 40,000 pairs of pelicans disappeared from that state.

Florida later played a part in restoring their populations by sending dozens of pairs of birds.

For now, though, look to the sky, particularly to the west, as you drive anywhere along the coast.

If you’re lucky enough to see a flock of migrating white pelicans, they’ll typically be 2,000-3,000 feet high and drifting along in a lazy line.

Sometimes the entire flock will do a lazy, 360-degree turn before resuming their flight.

Their stay here in the Sunshine State is fairly limited.

By March or early April, they reverse the process and fly back to familiar grounds.

It’s nature’s amazing way.