It's taken me a while to sort through the
different plumages of brown pelicans. It hasn't helped that many online sites and books have color and range descriptions that vary from each other and differ from my own observations. I have a suspicion that the color discrepancies are mainly due to the
different subspecies of brown pelicans. Plus, some reputable sites (e.g.,
Cornell and
The National Wildlife Federation) state brown pelicans migrate to central California for the winter. Hmm, really? Well, they are in Monterey during the winter, but based on my posts here on Nature ID, brown pelicans are most abundant from May to October. Of course, with all the heavy cold fog we've had lately, anyone could mistake summer for winter, right?
From what I've seen, juveniles have a brown head, neck, and back, yellow-dipped grey bill, and an obvious white belly, although it could be easy to miss if they're turned away. The first one above was quite the cute poser.
adult post-breeding California brown pelican
Pelecanus occidentalis californicus
I believe most adults have a dark body, including belly, ranging from brown to grey. Now, here's where it gets tricky - the adults have
various color combinations from the neck up, depending on the time of year and maybe subspecies.
The adult color combination I've seen most is the post-breeding/chick-feeding version. The head is always white and sometimes has dark specks. The front of the neck is also white, but the back of the neck can be dark brown or grey as shown above. To see pictures of very distinctive brown hindnecks with grey bodies, see my
May 21, 2009 post. They all look like they have a smear of orange lipstick on their grey bills.
I have yet to photograph a non-breeding pelican with an all white neck, which I think I've seen here in Monterey. I suspect I can catch them during late fall through winter. Many online pictures show
yellow heads and sometimes
yellow or orange bills.
The most elaborate color combination would be the
breeding adult with a red throat pouch that often extends to the bill, yellow head, dark brown hindneck, and yellow base of foreneck. However, I have found online photos with
black throat pouches,
no brown hindneck, an even
white bellies, but, again, those may be different subspecies or misidentified photos.
It may be unlikely that I'll be able to photograph a breeding adult around these parts. Don Roberson of
Creagus and author of
Monterey Birds recites a 1973 Baldridge paper documenting brown pelican nests on Bird Island at Point Lobos from 1927 to the last nests seen in 1966. Due to DDT use and its ban,
El Niño conditions, and other factors like outright slaughter of thousands of pelicans by commercial fishermen, brown pelican populations have fluctuated dramatically over the past century. The US Fish and Wildlife Service listed the brown pelican as endangered in 1970, 3 years before the
Endangered Species Act was signed. It was
delisted due to recovery in 2009. In 2000 breeding behavior was observed at Point Lobos, but according to a recent e-mail from Don there have been no successful nests since 1966. They breed in southern CA and northern Baja.
I've mentioned before that we rarely get to
Point Lobos mainly because it is hugely popular and often too crowded for my hiking preferences. Plus, if you try to sneak in there before the posted times, they will fine you something like $250. For close-up viewing of pelicans, I stay in town, get out before the tourists wake up, and see them at any of the 3 piers/wharfs:
Coast Guard Pier,
Fisherman's Wharf, and the
Municipal Wharf No. 2 as shown above.
ps 08/22/11 - We saw a couple all white-neck pelicans today. It looked like there was a shadow of the brown hood still. I wonder how many molts brown pelicans need to go through to get to each distinctive plumage stage. I'm hoping the pictures turned out.
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juvenile California brown pelican
