Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
“A wonderful bird is the pelican; his bill can hold more than his belly can,” begins the limerick by Dixon Lanier Merritt. And it’s true — a pelican’s pouch can hold up to three times more than its stomach. This multi-purpose structure serves as a scoop, a cooling mechanism in hot weather, and as a trough for young pelicans, which retrieve food from their parents' pouches.
Although the Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) is the smallest of the world’s eight pelican species, it’s still a big bird at about four feet long (including the bill), with a six-and-a-half-foot wingspan. The American White Pelican, North America’s only other pelican species, is a foot longer and has a nine-foot wingspan, dimensions that help rank it, along with the California Condor, Trumpeter Swan, and Golden Eagle, as among North America's largest birds. The Brown Pelican, however, is arguably the most beautifully patterned of these birds, with breeding males and females displaying a pale yellow head, dark cinnamon neck, contrasting white throat, and black, white, or orange-red bill and throat pouch. The dark underparts are elegantly streaked with silver.
Driven almost to extinction twice — first by hunting and later by pesticides including DDT — the Brown Pelican today is a shining example of the successful conservation outcomes made possible by policies such as the Endangered Species Act, and the work of the Environmental Protection Agency. Declared Endangered in the 1970s, this charismatic bird is now a familiar sight along many coastlines, thanks to conservation legislation, public education, and decades of cooperation by a wide range of partners.
Also known as: Pelícano Pardo (Spanish)
Learn more at abcbirds.org/bird/brown-pelican
“A wonderful bird is the pelican; his bill can hold more than his belly can,” begins the limerick by Dixon Lanier Merritt. And it’s true — a pelican’s pouch can hold up to three times more than its stomach. This multi-purpose structure serves as a scoop, a cooling mechanism in hot weather, and as a trough for young pelicans, which retrieve food from their parents' pouches.
Although the Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) is the smallest of the world’s eight pelican species, it’s still a big bird at about four feet long (including the bill), with a six-and-a-half-foot wingspan. The American White Pelican, North America’s only other pelican species, is a foot longer and has a nine-foot wingspan, dimensions that help rank it, along with the California Condor, Trumpeter Swan, and Golden Eagle, as among North America's largest birds. The Brown Pelican, however, is arguably the most beautifully patterned of these birds, with breeding males and females displaying a pale yellow head, dark cinnamon neck, contrasting white throat, and black, white, or orange-red bill and throat pouch. The dark underparts are elegantly streaked with silver.
Driven almost to extinction twice — first by hunting and later by pesticides including DDT — the Brown Pelican today is a shining example of the successful conservation outcomes made possible by policies such as the Endangered Species Act, and the work of the Environmental Protection Agency. Declared Endangered in the 1970s, this charismatic bird is now a familiar sight along many coastlines, thanks to conservation legislation, public education, and decades of cooperation by a wide range of partners.
Also known as: Pelícano Pardo (Spanish)
Learn more at abcbirds.org/bird/brown-pelican
