Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1906-01-23
YEAR In PELICAN LAND.
MIGRATION BEGINS IN NoVEM
Der WITH SINGULAR EXACT
NESS.

Cycle of Development Which In
ciudes Courtship, Egg-laying, In
cubation, Care of the Young, the
Mott and Hbernation.
Year after year, in the first week of
November, with singular exactness
the pelicans come to their unattrac-
tive little mud fiat. Some come from
up, some come from down the river,
all evidently moved by common
impulse. What is it? 1t is not a
question of food, for the pelicans
really feed near their nesting place;
it is not question of climate. for
they do not go far enough from their
breeding ground to experience climat-
ic change when returning to it.
The journey is doubtless prompted
from within. With birds the season
of reproduction is periodic, ard with
migratory species, whether the jour
ney be to a nearby island or to an
other zone, the return to the breed
ing ground is only one phenomenon in
a physiological cycle of development
which includes, in regular order, mi
grafton, courtship, egg laying, incuba-
ton, the care of the Young, the mott
and the retreat to winter quarters.
Even in the tropics, birds as rule,
do not nest until spring and early
summer; but the pelican woos his
mate in November and begins house
keeping in the first month of winter.
Among such dumb and undemonstra-
tive birds courtship must be very
solemn affair, but no one seems to
know much about 1t. Apparently,
however, it is conducted to the salts
faction of both contracting parties, and
with the happiest results; for never
have | seen indications OF domestic
trouble among the indigenes of peli-
canland. The warden, to whom / am
indebted for these dates of arrival
and nesting, tells me that the first
mated birds resort to the trees where
a bulky nest of sticks lined with
coarse grasses is built upon a plat
form made by laying heavier sticks
from crotch to crotch. When the ar.
boreal sites are taken, the remaining
birds, numbering about one thousand
pairs, build upon the ground nest
containing, as rule, more grass and
fewer sticks than are employed by
their relatives in the trees.
Unfortunately, the island is so low
that a "norther" raises the water
sufficiently to flood ali but sand bar
at it's eastern end. Only those ground
nesting birds which build upon the
sands, therefore, are secure from the
waves. Consequently, if one should
visit Pelican Island in April, after the
season of northers had passed, and
see the closest nests on the sand
bar, with the rest of the island I'M
occupied, one might credit the sur
vivors with ability intelligently to Sc
lect a nesting site above the reach
of the waters. Whereas, in truth, the
earlier homes of many of these same
birds, built OF low ground, had been
inundated, and their eggs, washed
from the nests, were still scattered
about the island. Apparently, then,
there is here no conscious selection
evolved by experience. Year after
year. birds nest on the low ground
and suffer the consequences, while, by
elimination, the high ground colony
Is established through the disaster
which befalls all those that do not
resort to it.
The first of the three eggs to which
the pelicans limit themselves is laid
by Dec. l. One might imagine that
even Florida winter was a singu-
larly inappropriate season for hatch
ing eggs; but pelicans are large bodi-
ed birds, and husband as well as wife
Is faithful to the duties of incubation,
one going on the nest as the other
leaves it. Normally, therefore, the
eggs are never exposed, and after
about four weeks sitting the little
pelican announces itself by a char
acteristic choking grunt uttered even
before it leaves the shell.
1t is not an attractive creature at
birth, but in about eighteen days its
black, naked ugliness is concealed be-
meath a down so thick, soft and white
that it might grace a swan. The
young of tree-nesting pelicans do not
leave their nest until they make their
first attempt to flight; but if the young
pelican chances to be born on the
ground, it will go swimming for the
first time when about six weeks old,
and at the age of ten weeks it will
have learned to use its wings
In March, If all goes well, the peli-
can may close their house for the
winter, take their family and go tray
cling; but June 1 sometimes finds
birds still occupied with domestic af-
fairs. This extension of the nesting
season Is doubtless due in part 10
some individual irregularity in the
time of laying, but more largely to
disaster of one kind or another which
befalls early efforts at housekeeping.
High water, cold weather or expo
sure to the sun before they are cloth
ed are all factors in creating a high
mortality among young pelicans; and
few, indeed, are the parents which
succeed in raising family of three
From Frank M. Chapman's "An In
innate Study of the Pelican" in the
Century.
snatching Victory from Defeat.