The great white pelican's name means a bird that brays like a donkey
Linnaeus named the great white pelican onocrotalus, from a Greek word for something that brays like a donkey, after its harsh calls at breeding time. The bird itself is far from comic in the air: its wings can span up to 3.6 metres, bettered among living fliers only by the great albatrosses.
Among pelicans only the Dalmatian is larger on average. Adults reach 140 to 180 cm long, with a pink and yellow bill of up to 47 cm and a pale yellow throat pouch. Males are much bulkier, weighing 9 to 15 kg against 5.4 to 9 kg for females, possibly the largest size gap in any living pelican. Plumage is white with black flight feathers, and breeding birds flush pink, grow a shaggy crest and show bare facial skin, pinkish on males and orange on females. Unlike other pelicans, its forehead feathering narrows to a sharp point where it meets the bill.
Mostly silent, it grunts and growls, and at colonies it gives deep lowing calls. It is a sociable bird that needs a clumsy running start to leave the water but becomes a graceful soarer once airborne, flapping a few times and then gliding, often in lines, circles or V-shaped formations.
Fish are almost the entire diet. Birds leave the roost early and have been seen flying more than 100 km to feed. Each needs roughly a kilo or more a day, which adds up to around 28 million kilograms a year at Tanzania's Lake Rukwa, the largest colony in Africa. Preferred prey varies by region: carp in Europe, mullet in China, toothcarp in India and cichlids across Africa.
The African population of about 75,000 pairs stays put, while Eurasian birds migrate. More than half the Eurasian breeders nest in Romania's Danube Delta, arriving around late March and leaving by late November. Over 75,000 have been counted passing through Israel on migration. Although rated of least concern overall, it has probably vanished from Serbia and Montenegro and is regionally extinct in Hungary.
Source: Great white pelican
