American White Pelican

Description:

Unlike brown pelicans that dive for their food, white pelicans make a circle and all dip into the water at once, creating a current that confuses their prey. Breeding adults have a yellowish crest and throat, which fades with the crest and nape turning grey in adults feeding chicks. Juveniles are mostly grey. The colony has a few birds still in breeding plumage, but most are feeding cicks It breeds in interior North America, moving south and to the coasts, as far as Central America and South America, in winter. There is an extension of the breeding population as far west as eastern Oregon(east of the cascades). In the last few years they have jumped the cascades into Western Oregon and have established a breeding colony in a large marsh refuge just east of the coast range. Their numbers have jumped dramatically in a short time at this location

Habitat:

marshy wildlife refuge