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The Blog

Running amok

6/27/2014

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PictureStuffed chick after a big feeding
Our cultural idea of fledging equates leaving the nest with flight. We imagine a songbird in a tree, or a raptor on a cliffside: the young bird poised at the edge of the nest, ready to jump off into nothing. 
For most seabirds, however, the process is not so immediate. There's actually a period of time after chicks leave the nest and before they can fly, something like the equivalent of high school in humans. The adults spend little time at the colony -- providing food for an adult-sized chick takes constant effort by both members of the breeding pair -- and the chicks aren't too interested in having them around. When adults arrive back with fish, they're mobbed by five or six neighbor chicks in addition to their own.


Between feedings the chicks roam the area unattended, fighting and interacting with one another. These days, most of the pelican productivity plots look something like this:

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Shrub plot on Chester Island
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Ground plot on Marker 52
PictureRoyal Tern creche, Chester Island
It's not just the pelicans, either. The large, densely concentrated tern nesting colonies on Chester Island, which contained nearly 10,000 nests at census, are now empty of adults. Roving bands of chicks have spread out across the island, usually guarded by one or two adults, and we never know where we might come across one of these creches.

As we continue to observe chick feeding rates and collect diet samples, we've noticed that feedings are much larger and much less frequent than earlier in the nesting season. Adolescent pelicans, apparently, will eat anything...
The big fish are definitely a positive thing to see, but sometimes the chicks' appetites get them in trouble. Last week, we removed a plastic water bottle from a chick's throat. We also freed a chick at one of the Galveston Bay colonies that had a piece of monofilament fishing line wrapped tightly around its leg.
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Water bottle that had been swallowed by a pelican chick, Shamrock Island, TX
As with human high schoolers, pre-fledgeling pelicans must face down the dangers of growing up. It won't be long until the chicks that we've watched from the day they hatched fly off into a world where we can't follow them any longer, and where first-winter mortality can be as high as 80%. They have to learn to fly, to locate and catch prey, and to navigate anthropogenic threats. In the meantime, we can still keep an eye on them... for now.
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Miniature pelicans

6/4/2014

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PictureMonth-old chicks can preen and thermoregulate, and begin to look less like lizards
It seems like just yesterday that the first chicks were hatching in our productivity plots, but, in fact, many of them are already about a month old and large enough to band. We only have a short window of opportunity for getting this done, since it's around this age that chicks begin leaving their nests and moving to different areas of the colony, where their parents will continue feeding them for several weeks before the chicks are able to fly.


We banded our first round of nestlings on Chester Island last week, and both of us came away with our arms and faces covered in scratches. The nestlings weigh almost as much as adults at this stage, and their bills, though shorter, are just as sharp. Plus they're very agile. While adult pelicans are silent, pelican chicks are extremely vocal, making the whole process loud as well as hazardous.

Besides starting on chick banding, we've also been continuing productivity monitoring and behavioral observations, collecting lots of fish samples, and helping out with the annual censuses on Shamrock and Chester Islands. 
Following the Shamrock census, we installed four new productivity plots on that island and captured five adults for transmitter attachment, which brings our total to 25 for the year (88 overall). We also spotted a juvenile Brown Booby on Shamrock. This pelican relative breeds in the Caribbean but rarely visits the United States, so it was a treat to see one here.
Beautiful weather, light winds, great birds. We're living a charmed life in Texas!
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The sun sets on Shamrock and our faithful Mako
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    Author(s)

    Juliet Lamb is the post-doc in charge of the project. You can check her website at julietlamb.weebly.com

    Rochelle Streker is a M.S. student with the project. She'll be contributing to the blog from her field base in Alabama.

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