Pelicans perching on poles

[David Clark <>]

It is a common sight to see Pelicans perched on light poles as you drive in to Lakes Entrance.  Most suitable poles along the east coast seem to attract Pelicans and, like Sandra Henderson, I have watched them at Eden Wharf.  The grace and ease with which they land on a relatively small target is great to watch.

Interestingly, a shop in Barwon Heads (Vic) has some quite realistic, life size plastic/fibreglass Pelicans, including one that is intended to be placed on a pole.  I'm very tempted!

Cheers

David 

On Sun, Jan 20, 2019 at 5:14 AM sandra henderson <> wrote:

Often see them perched on the light poles at Eden Wharf, and they are roosting high in dead trees at the Mugga Lane tip. You can see them from Long Gully Rd.

Sandra h

On Saturday, 19 January 2019, Philip Veerman <m("pcug.org.au","pveerman");" target="_blank">> 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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