A Wonderful Bird is the Pelican

tanjabrittonwriter 52 Comments

It’s springtime in Colorado and the pelicans are returning to our landlocked state. When my husband and I first beheld a flock of large white birds on one of Colorado’s reservoirs many years ago, we mistook them for swans. As it turned out, they were pelicans. Always having associated these birds with coastal waters, we learned that American White Pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos, literally red-billed pelican) overwinter mostly near coastlines but breed on (mostly western) inland lakes in the summer. Often described as prehistoric in appearance, pelicans count among North America’s largest birds, with a length of 62 inches (157 cm) between the tip of the beak and tip of the tail, and a wingspan of 108 inches (274 cm).

“Behold the pelican, his beak can hold more than his belly can.” Attributed to Ogden Nash (American poet, 1902-1971 who, in his obituary in the The New York Times was called “the country’s best-known producer of humorous poetry”).

During a visit to Jackson Lake State Park in northeastern Colorado in October 2022, where large numbers of pelicans congregate annually (a flock of pelicans has been called pod, pouch, squad, or squadron), we came across a beautiful artistic rendering of these imposing creatures who are known to swim, fly, and fish in synchrony. Their diet consists mainly of small fish which they scoop up with their large pouched lower beaks (aka mandibles), often in amounts that seem impossible to swallow. This fact has engendered amazement among observers, as well as poems.

Reading about the pelican, whose “beak can hold more than his belly can” which, on this particular painting, was attributed to American poet Ogden Nash, made me curious to learn more and made me plunge not for fish, but information.

I came across a number of limericks celebrating the pelican (a limerick is a poem that consists of a single stanza of five lines with a rhyme scheme of AABBA). As it turns out, there is a fair amount of confusion and controversy surrounding these humorous poems about pelicans. According to an internet site titled Quote Investigator, the most famous version of a limerick was published on April 2, 1912 in The Tampa Morning Tribune and attributed to C.M. Marshton, an editor at the Chicago Record-Herald, who supposedly wrote it after visiting friends in Florida (but he never claimed credit):

A gorgeous bird is the pelican,

Whose beak will hold more than his bellican.

He can put in his beak

Food enough for a week.

But I’m d— if I see how the hellecan.

Only a few days later, on April 6, 1912, The Miami Herald published a slightly modified version, substituting “hellecan” with “hellican,” thereby matching it more closely with “bellican.” Another popular variant has been attributed to Dixon Lanier Merritt (who denied having written it) and goes as follows:

A wonderful bird is the pelican.

His beak will hold more than his belican.

He can take in his beak

Enough food for a week!

But I’m damned if I see how the helican.

Numerous other variations are in circulation and as early as January 25, 1908 New York City’s The Evening World published something that might have served as inspiration for the later poet (or poets) who marveled at the pelicans’ ability to scoop up large numbers of fish:

P stands for pelican

A bird whose great beak

Will hold more fish than

You could eat in a week.

As wonderful a bird as the pelican is, I don’t need to resolve the exact particulars and provenance of every pelican poem that is propagated in order to appreciate the admirable ability, agility, and antics of these avian anglers, but I’m not astonished at their ability to amaze and astound.

🐡🐟🐡🐟🐡🐟🐡🐟🐡🐟🐡🐟🐡

PS: I wonder if the various poets referred to American White Pelicans or Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis), since both occur in Florida, the latter year-round. But since I have only seen one lone Brown Pelican in my life thus far, my photos are only of the white kind.

52 thoughts on “A Wonderful Bird is the Pelican”

    • Thank you for your kind comment. I fee the same way as you about pelicans: wonderful birds that are fun to watch. I look forward to getting to know the brown pelicans better one of these days.

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  5. Can’t remember if I previously pointed you to a French poem about pelicans, but here it is, followed by a non-rhyming translation.

    Le pélican

    ~ Robert Desnos

     

    Le capitaine Jonathan,

    Etant âgé de dix-huit ans,

    Capture un jour un pélican

    Dans une île d’Extrême-Orient.

     

    Le pélican de Jonathan,

    Au matin, pond un oeuf tout blanc

    Et il en sort un pélican

    Lui ressemblant étonnamment.

     

    Et ce deuxième pélican

    Pond, à son tour, un oeuf tout blanc

    D’où sort, inévitablement,

    Un autre, qui en fait autant.

     

    Cela peut durer pendant très longtemps

    Si l’on ne fait pas d’omelette avant.

     

     

    Captain Jonathan,

    Who’s 18 years old,

    One day captures a pelican

    On an island in the Far East.

     

    The next morning, Jonathan’s pelican

    Lays a pure white egg,

    And from it there emerges

    An astonishingly similar-looking pelican.

     

    And this second pelican

    In its turn lays a pure white egg

    From which there inevitably comes

    Another, which then does likewise.

     

    This can keep going on for a long, long time

    Unless someone makes an omelet first.

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    • Thank you for the French poem, Steve. I don’t remember reading it before–it’s very funny. I would have actually been able to translate it on my own, which makes me happy, having always loved the French language.

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  7. Funny story – I knew the first half of that poem from childhood, because I had a pelican beanie baby and it was on his tag (the tags always had little rhyming snippets on them). Awesome pelican photos! We actually just saw a whole flock yesterday in South Park and we have a couple that sometimes hang out in the pond behind our place this time of year.

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    • Thank you, Diana. Your pelican beanie baby sounds like fun. I didn’t know about pelicans until adulthood. I’m still thrilled that we have them in Colorado and it’s always a treat to watch them. I’m glad you got to see them in South Park and I hope they will return to your nearby pond.

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  9. Nice tribute to the pelican. You found a very large squadron (my word) of them. Amazing to see them flying in formation. Lot of great photo opportunities.

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  11. An amazing sight to see them in such large numbers. I’ve seen our Australian Pelicans, which look similar, many times at either the zoo or the Jawbone nature reserve on the coast.

    I even sat next (about 4 feet) to one at the zoo.

    They’re a wonderful sight flying across the sky with their enormous bill. Love that last image. They’re so close and captured very well in flight.

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  12. Ich sah im vergangenen Winter unzählige weiße Pelikane in Texas, in Dallas sogar, aber ganz viele in Port Aransas und dann auch in Florida. Es scheint, dass alle diese Pelikane nun in Colorado sind. Tolle Bilder zeigst Du. Ich freue mich darüber sehr.
    Nach mehreren Wochen Blogpause bin ich auch wieder da.
    Liebe GrüßeMaren

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  13. Was symbolisiert der Pelikan?
    Als ein Symbol für Jesus Christus gehören Pelikane zur christlichen Ikonographie. Nach dem Physiologus, einem frühchristlichen Tierkompendium, öffnet sich der Pelikan mit dem Schnabel die eigene Brust, lässt sein Blut auf seine toten Jungen tropfen und holt sie so wieder ins Leben zurück.

    Es gibt sehr viel Interessantes und Neues über den Pelikan.
    Danke für den Beitrag, die Bilder und den Anstoß…

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    • VIelen Dank für Deinen Kommentar, liebe Brigitte. Das mit dem Symbolismus der Pelikane in der christlichen Ikonographie ist mir völlig neu und ich kann mich gar nicht erinnern, Bildern von Pelikanen im religiösen Kontext begegnet zu sein.

      Frau lernt nie aus! 😊

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  14. Terrific post. It helps that you included the tribute to the Pelican by my favorite poet, Ogden Nash. Who knows which version actually came first. Each is a great description of a unique bird.

    We have a local lake which can have from a few dozen to a few thousand American White Pelicans in the winter.

    It’s fascinating to watch a squadron fish cooperatively. They form a circle around a school of fish, gradually tightening the space until the prey is concentrated so they can all have more in their beaks than their belly can hold.

    Conversely, their cousin, the Brown Pelican, prefers to soar above the water and dive into a school of fish.

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    • Thank you, Wally, I’m so glad you enjoyed the post.

      I’m sure you see pelicans far more often in Florida, especially the brown incarnation. One showed up at a reservoir in Colorado a year or so ago, where I was thrilled to encounter it.

      I must admit that I don’t know anything else about Ogden Nash besides what I came across when researching the limerick. I need to remedy my ignorance!

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  15. Thank you, Tanja. What a wonderful creature, not likely to be seen in the UK, unfortunately. It looks almost comical up close, but splendid in the air. It must be a sight to behold when they are moving in syncronization.

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  16. As soon as I read your title, I completed the poem in my mind. It was one of the first I learned from my father, probably when I was about kindergarten age. He taught me to love word play; it often took place around the dinner table, and Nash was a favorite.

    I was an adult before I learned about Merritt and other variants of the poem thanks to researching for a post about a nearby town that’s adopted the pelican as a sort of mascot. The town is filled with artistic renderings of the birds like this. Everyone loves them, and the ‘pelican path’ is a great favorite of tourists.

    On the other hand, the real birds abound. I envy the abundance of the white pelicans in your area. We see them only in winter, and not a great number. On the other hand, there are hundreds of brown pelicans now; we were admiring them in Galveston last weekend. I get to watch them on a daily basis. They fish in the marinas, where mullet are common and trout show up from time to time. I’m sure they get other species that I don’t know about. I love the fuzzy yellow heads on the adults; I’d love to feel one.

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    • Brown or white, pelicans are fun to watch and read (and write) poems about. Growing up in Europe, I didn’t know about Nash or Merritt or the pelican limerick but I have been enjoying learning about all three. Like you, I would also love to feel the fuzzy head of a pelican, but that dream might go unfulfilled, unless we come across one at a petting zoo.

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  17. This was the first limerick I ever learned, several decades before I was fortunate enough to see my first wild pelican. Strange birds, but good fun. Can’t really understand how they manage to stay airborne with a beak like that. Thank you for the joyful trip down memory lane.

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    • I imagine that it would have been fun to learn this hilarious limerick as a child and then watch a real-life pelican use that generous beak to catch fish. I also marvel at their gracefulness in flight, despite the unusual shape and ponderous bill.

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  19. Lovely post, Tanja. It strangely mirrors one I have been working on. When I first saw white pelicans I was transfixed. Prior to that I had only seen the brown pelicans in Cairo and along US coasts.

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  21. Only one Brown Pelican… you need to get yourself to the Gulf Coast ha! We have an abundance of the White’s up/over hear as well. I most enjoy when their squadron takes flight – always noticeable as they will phase in and out of visibility (more like a shimmer) as they hit different angles to the sun which can hide or accent their black edging on their wings. I do prefer watching the Brown’s hunt, but these are so pretty in their all whites floating in the water – a bit gullish when one gets a nice catch…but then again, aren’t we all hahahaha.

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    • I agree–I absolutely need to make it to the Gulf Coast. I don’t know it’s been so difficult for me to get something organized but I think my mandatory trips to Germany once or twice a year have something to do with it.

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  22. Pelikane gehören für mich neben Eulen zu den ausdrucksstärksten Vögeln überhaupt. In Deutschland im Weltvogelpark Walsrode beobachte ich sie immer sehr gerne. Allerdings müssen die Vögel dort ihr Fressen nicht für eine Woche bevorraten 😁 Schöne Bilder!

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      • Wenn Du mal wieder in Deutschland bist, dann musst Du ihn unbedingt besuchen. Er ist echt toll mit zahlreichen auch seltenen Vögeln, Freiflugvoliere, Freiflugvorführungen und natürlich die Fütterungen als besonderes Highlight für die Kinder. Der Park macht viel in Sachen Naturschutz.
        In meiner Galerie Charakterschnäbel haben einige Vögel des Weltvogelparks Modell gestanden

        FOTOHABITATE


        Dösende Pelikane können auch sehr witzig sein. 😄

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  23. I love your piece on the white pelican. It is something to see them forming a large group and herding fish together to fill their bellicans.

    Gary

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  24. I found this post highly interesting. The Caribbean also has a brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis occidentalis) which is one of the smaller ones. I can tell that you are a writer and a scholar.

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