White pelicans make themselves at home in Lowcountry

Jeff Mollenhauer, Audubon South Carolina

White pelicans feed with great egrets at the Bear Island Wildlife Management Area in Colleton County.

GREEN POND — The huge new birds in the Lowcountry sky soar like raptors and fish by herding schools into the shallows and scooping them up in their bills. The quirky white pelican is here.

"Often you see them fly in huge flocks catching thermals. It wouldn't be too uncommon to have 100 in a flock soaring like wood storks," said Jeff Mollenhauer, of Audubon South Carolina.

White pelicans are the bigger, broader and, well, paler version of the beloved brown pelican that is a Lowcountry native. They have wingspans as long as 9 feet and bright orange pouch beaks that get brighter during mating season. They are largely western state birds, wintering along the Pacific and Gulf coasts, breeding in lakes throughout the Midwest, West and Canada.

South Carolina doesn't even show up on maps of their range, although a few of the pelicans have shown up along the coast for years, outriders of the Gulf Coast winter flocks. But in the past few years, they have begun turning up in increasing numbers.

Flocks of dozens and dozens have been spotted on Bear Island in the ACE Basin. They haunt the nearby Nemours Plantation. A flock of 100 or so has been seen cruising Cape Romain farther north. S.C. Natural Resources wildlife biologist Tom Murphy estimates 300 birds are found now along the coast.

They seem to be here to stay. White pelican flocks declined for years before starting to recover in the 1960s. Now there are so many birds that their range is spreading, Murphy suspects.

An oddity about the Lowcountry's new birds is that they stay year round. The flocks appear to be juveniles, which stay until they mature and begin the breeding migration.

They've especially taken to plantation rice fields. When the water is drawn down in the fields, fish cluster in the remaining shallows. For the pelican, that means the herding already is done and it's time to eat.

"They push the fish into a corner and when the fish try to jump over them, they scoop them up," Murphy said.

Reach Bo Petersen at 745-5852 or bpetersen@postandcourier.com.