Pelicans love hanging out on lights on bridges - probably because they are good
launching points near the water. Because their habit of crapping from a roost
is hazardous to passing cars, there are anti-roosting wires strung on the
lights along the Hornibrook bridge running between Sandgate an Redcliffe.
Regards, Laurie.
> On 19 Jan 2019, at 5:25 pm, Philip Veerman <> wrote:
>
> I went to Batemans Bay this week (NSW SE coast, down from Canberra, for those
> not local). A thing that I noticed and usually have noticed there, is that
> the Pelicans really like to perch on light poles there. It seems to me a
> difficult and strange thing for such heavy birds to do. They can hardly be
> looking for food from there. Given that even birds like Galahs sometimes have
> difficulty perching on these rounded smooth steel structures and Pelicans
> don’t have gripping feet and they would need to achieve almost zero speed in
> flight to perch there. So is that a local habit or widespread? At San Remo
> near Phillip Island, there is a bit of a tourist attraction of feeding of
> Pelicans, but they fly in to the car park area, I did not notice them
> perching on poles. Surprisingly a web search typing in “Pelicans perching on
> poles” provided many pictures
> https://www.google.com/search?q=pelicans+perching+on+poles&rlz=1C1GGRV_enAU751AU751&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwizxozjivnfAhXUTX0KHe3BAdQQsAR6BAgAEAE&biw=1280&bih=882
>
> but these are mostly stumps or piers not high light poles. Many are
> Australian Pelicans and the American Brown Pelicans which I suspect is not so
> big.
>
> Philip
>
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