A Sight to Behold

[dihoekstra]

Went birding at Tawakoni State Park (while husband was fishing!). Anyway, this was the encore to a great day of birding, in spite of the mud puddles! There must have been over a hundred of these pelicans flying over our campsite. Imagine the size of each one--wing span of 9 feet! It was so cool...

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/210/441488378_49e77e87ed.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/210/441488376_e4794fcc9e.jpg

[betsy]

No kidding! My sister and I were driving east on Mockingbird Thursday afternoon and as we approached the intersection with Abrams we noticed about 50 pellies kettling overhead. They kept flying in circles and drifting northeastward as they went. And you notice they all have their wings outspread in your photos, Di -- no flapping! Those guys can really soar on those 9' wingspans!

[Maestro]

Wow! That MUST have been a sight to behold.

[Connie Sandlin]

It looks to me that there are at least 68 White Pelicans in the top photo, so I would think that there were at least several more outside the area of sky than could be captured by the camera.

Great photos! I just love seeing White Pelicans kettling. They are so beautiful.

[dihoekstra]

Yeah, Connie, I just shot a portion of them, a little more than half. There were so many. My husband swore, even before they were kettling (new term for me!), that while fishing they saw a thousand of them on the lake. Once these flew over, I felt bad for doubting him.

Anyway, for newer birders like me, in the zoomed picture you can see the breeding growth on some of their bills. Here is a closer picture we got of this growth on a pelican on Lake Buchanan last month. Maybe there's a scientifc name for it?

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/184/417035962_b46dfee3e2.jpg

[betsy]

There doesn't appear to be a scientific name for it, Di. On one site I found it described as "laterally flattened horn on the upper mandible."

Kettling is a term that's also used of hawks, vultures, and any other species that soars in thermals as a group. It describes the way the birds soar around in a rising circle on a column of rising air -- since they end up at different levels it apparently reminded the inventer of the term of the shape of a kettle. Not a hot water kettle, but a stew kettle -- the kind that would be hung on a hob over a fire when people cooked over the fire in a huge fireplace. Or perhaps a kettledrum. That's what I thought when I first heard the term, at any rate. Other people have other ideas about what the inventor of the term was thinking of. Here are three other ideas I found, two on the internet and one in a book. These are all direct quotes.

1. The term 'kettling' is derived from the fact that the soaring hawks resemble the bubbles in a boiling kettle of water.

2. An episode of large groups of hawks riding thermal currents high into the air has been compared to steam rising from a boiling kettle;therefore, the effect of hawks soaring upward is often referred to as “kettling,” and a group of hawks is frequently called a “kettle.”

3. Kettle. A flock of migrating hawks or other soaring birds spiraling upward on warm air currents. Because of the form of the rising "thermals," the birds riding them take on the form of an inverted cone and suggest the whirlpool effect created when a person vigorously stirs a kettle of liquid.

About the only consistent thing here is that the term refers to a flock of birds spiraling upwards on a thermal.

If the birds weren't going about in circles when they went over your campsite, then they'd already gained the height they wanted and were simply soaring, not kettling any longer. Kettling is a bird's way of gaining altitude with minimal effort.

[dihoekstra]

Yeah, they were kettling. They actually started out quite low. That's was what made it so impressive. Then, just as you described, they circled and got higher and further north. It was very cool because as they would circle, you would only see the white of their backs gleaming in the sun. Then as they came around you would see the black under the wings. Never heard a sound though. They were very quiet.

[Connie Sandlin]

The thing about watching White Pelicans kettling is that they "wink" in and out, partly because their angle (soaring attitude) changes relative to the observer and the sun's light shining on their wings as they swirl around and around. When they are "edge on" towards us, it looks for a moment as if they've vanished, then their angle changes and they are suddenly (to us) visible again.

I love watching pelicans, White or Brown - they are fascinating birds, and the Brown Pelicans are so very different in many ways from the American White Pelicans.

[betsy]

I remember one windy evening just around sunset when I was on my way home, going north along West Lawther. I pulled into the parking lot south of Lily Pad Bay* just in time to see a phalanx of 15 White Pelicans abreast come gliding towards me from the north with nary a wingbeat. They all landed in a line, simultaneously executed a right face and swam single file in stately fashion to the shelter of the reeds on the far side of that little creek that enters the bay there. Decidedly majestic bird! I'll never forget those magical moments.

* The parking lot with the boat ramp is the one on the other side of Lily Pad Bay.