Pelicans eat fish, which they catch by using the extensible thr.... pelican white

One species, the brown pelican ( P. occidentalis; see ), captures fish by a spectacular plunge from the air, but other species swim in formation, driving small schools of fish into shoal water where they are scooped up by the birds ( see ). Pelicans lay one to four bluish white eggs in a stick nest, and the young hatch in about a month. The best-known pelicans are the two species called Pelecanus erythrorhynchos of the New World, the North American white pelican, and P. Pelicans usually breed in colonies on islands; there may be many small colonies on a single island. The gregarious North American white pelican breeds on islands in lakes in north-central and western North America; all pairs in any colony at any given time are in the same stage of the reproductive cycle. pelican white