Birdpass
English
Great White Pelican

Great White Pelican

Pelecanus onocrotalus

Identify the Great White Pelican by sound or photo and log your sightings with Birdpass.

  • Download on the App Store
  • Get it on Google Play

The Great White Pelican is a huge, mainly white pelican that breeds in south-eastern Europe, Asia and much of Africa, favouring swamps and shallow lakes. Adults are white with black flight feathers and a massive bill with a yellow pouch, and in the breeding season have a pinkish flush and bare pink facial skin. It fishes cooperatively in groups.

Did you know?

  • Its name onocrotalus comes from the Greek for “braying like a donkey”.
  • It has one of the largest wingspans of any flying bird.

Voice

Sound

About the species

Identification

A very large, almost entirely white bird with black flight feathers and pink skin around the eye and on the legs. Young birds are grey-brown with dark flight feathers. It is told from Dalmatian Pelican by its whiter plumage and the clearly black flight feathers in flight.

Family

Pelecanidae

Size

Very large (swan)

Colours

white, yellow, black

About the habitat

Large, open wetlands – swamps, shallow lakes, deltas and lagoons – where it can rest, breed and fish in calm, shallow water.

Diet

Mainly fish, caught in shallow water, often by groups swimming in a horseshoe to drive fish together before scooping them up in unison.

Behaviour

Highly gregarious, it forms large flocks, soars in formation on thermals and breeds in dense colonies near water. Generally silent away from colonies, it gives deep grunts and mooing calls at breeding sites.

Sources

Photo: Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Great white pelican (Pelecanus onocrotalus).jpg

Sound: Marco Dragonetti, CC BY 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Great_White_Pelican_(Pelecanus_onocrotalus)_sounds.ogg

Text: Wikipedia (English), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_white_pelican

See also