The pelican on the left had a broken lower mandible, and had to wear a hideous fixator for days that looked like the outrigger of a canoe. The pelican on the right, Nick and I brought up from NAR in Santa Cruz around two months ago. She was very sick, and had a foul smelling cheesy infection in her pouch. They faced certain death - now look at them!Friday, April 23, 2010
"You go first." "No, you go."
The pelican on the left had a broken lower mandible, and had to wear a hideous fixator for days that looked like the outrigger of a canoe. The pelican on the right, Nick and I brought up from NAR in Santa Cruz around two months ago. She was very sick, and had a foul smelling cheesy infection in her pouch. They faced certain death - now look at them!
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2 comments:
I'm wondering about their color differences...are they 2 different kinds of pelicans, or different ages, or different genders?
Those killdeer & avocet chicks are really, really cute! Having a feather duster for a surrogate mother is kind of sad and sweet at the same time.
They are both Brown Pelicans. The way we tell the sex is by measuring the bill - males are a little longer, otherwise they look the same. These are both adults, the one on the left is in breeding plumage, I believe, but is not showing the bright red throat that often occurs in breeding plumage. The one on the right is a non breeding adult. The oldest living brown pelican on record was 43.
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