Twenty+ years ago, while bicycling along the University of Wisconsin Green Bay Arboretum Trail, I spied a huge, lone, #bird flying low along the surface of the bay. Fascinated by such an unfamiliar sighting, I rushed home to search out the majestic creature on our newly obtained computer with dial-up internet access.
I discovered that the giant creature was an endangered American White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos), a species that took a
severe hit during the mid twentieth century due to heavy DDT contamination and wetland destruction.
I found a rudimentary website committed to tracking P. Erythrorhynchos, and it appeared, at the time, there were no reported sightings anywhere in the Great Lakes region prior to mine.
Fast forward to today, when I spied a group of six adults flying over our property, Inn the Heart of Green Bay. The six I saw, are the avant-garde of a larger breeding colony of 5000+ that have returned to Green Bay every March through October since around 2012.
What I love about American White Pelican colonies is seeing how they leverage thermal updrafts to achieve distinctive flight patterns. It’s now common during summers in Green Bay and #DePere to see groups of a hundred #pelicans circling and soaring in synchronized sky-dance. Be sure to watch for these beauties during your #stay in Green Bay. They’re seen mostly near the river and mouth of the bay, venturing a couple miles out from the waterways, as they did today when flying over the Oak Grove Neighborhood. Remember to pull off the road if you’re driving so you can really take in the grace of these giant aves in flight; it is simply mesmerizing.
“…and to lose the chance to see frigatebirds soaring in circles above the storm, or a file of pelicans winging their way homeward across the crimson afterglow of the sunset, or a myriad terns flashing in the bright light of midday as they hover in a shifting maze above the beach — why, the loss is like the loss of a gallery of the masterpieces of the artists of old time” ~Theodore Roosevelt
Inn the Heart of Green Bay 