Colour of Wildlife: Pink-Backed Pelican
Created | Updated Aug 16, 2020
Pink-Backed Pelican
Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"
Yet another kind of pelican! This is a Pink-backed Pelican, Pelecanus rufescens. The pinkish colour of the back is actually not that intense, and often hardly noticeable. This species is the only other pelican in Africa other than the Great White, and is more easily distinguished from that species by its smaller size and rather different face. When breeding, it gets a short, grey crest, and black markings around its eyes. In general, its plumage is greyish-looking rather than clean white. Its bill is also proportionately smaller than that of the great white. In body size it reaches a length of 132 cm/52", a wingspan of 290 cm/9'6" and a bodyweight of 9.7 kg/21 lbs, making it still a very large bird. Pink-backed pelicans are the only pelican species that is endemic to Africa, occurring all over the region south of the Sahara, except for most of Southern Africa. In South Africa it only occurs in the far north and extreme east, with its main breeding grounds being the Okavango Swamps and the warm subtropical wetlands of north-eastern Kwazulu-Natal, . It used to occur in Madagascar but has been apparently exterminated there.
Pink-backed pelicans are much like greater-white pelicans in their general features and behaviour. They differ in being somewhat less social, rarely seen in large groups. They frequent various bodies of water, inland or close to the coast. They typically fish alone, but may cooperate to drive shoals of fish to shallow water where they can catch them more easily. Their fishing method is to quietly swim along with its head raised, looking at the water to spot fish. If it sees some, a pelican will draw its head back towards its shoulders and slowly swim towards them. Then when within striking distance, it will rapidly shoot its head forward and plunge its open bill into the water. The fish is (hopefully!) captured in the pouch. The pelican lifts its head, tips it backwards to drain the water from the pouch, and swallows the fish. It spends only about a tenth to a fifth of each day fishing, the rest of the day just standing around or preening itself.
In their breeding behaviour, pink-backed pelicans are most similar to an Asian species, the Spot-billed Pelican, in using trees rather than flat ground for nesting. They build their nests anywhere from 10 to 50 m/33'-165' above the ground. In South Africa, they often choose regions where during the wet season, the bases of the trees are flooded, making it hard for predators to get to them. This is found usually in mangrove forests around river estuaries. Because this habitat occurs only in small spots, the pelicans congregate there in large colonies, numbering hundreds of birds, in often crowded conditions. Rarely, pink-backed pelicans will nest in reeds or on the ground.
It is typically the male who chooses a nest site. Having found a good piece of real estate, he will park himself there and try to attract the attention of a passing female. This he does by clattering his bill, flashing or flapping his wings, bowing and wagging his head sideways, or opening his bill to show its red interior. If a female accepts him, he will start bringing nesting material to the female, who will then do the actual nest building. The nests are built from sticks that are soon bound together tightly by the droppings of the pelicans and their offspring. Nest-building activity and concentrated droppings may actually kill the nesting tree. The nests themselves are sometimes destroyed by heavy rains. The pelicans will also destroy their nests after breeding or if abandoning it for some reason; each season a pair will therefore build a new nest.
The female typically lays two eggs, but it can vary from one to three. When two chicks hatch, the elder one is usually stronger and so dominates the other that it usually dies. Surviving chicks fledge at the age of about 85 days.
Although the species is not threatened in Africa as a whole, it is a rare species in South Africa and in need of conservation measurements. It is very sensitive to the destruction of mangroves and other forests because of its need for breeding trees. It also suffers from deterioration of water quality due to human pressures. Fortunately many of its breeding colonies today fall in protected areas, but this should continue into the future to safeguard its existence.
