A stray Dalmatian pelican (Pelecanus crispus) has landed in Taiwan, 11 years since the last time one was seen in the nation, the Wild Bird Society of Tainan said on Thursday, adding that the bird had been seen in various wetlands in Tainan and Chiayi.
The pelican is a large fish-eating migratory waterbird that can grow up to 1.7m long, with a wingspan of more than 3m and weight of up to 15kg.
“In the past few days there have been multiple sightings of a single pelican from the north to the south. To the best of our knowledge, it is the same bird,” Wild Bird Society member Chen Shang-ching (陳尚欽) said.
Photo courtesy of Lee Cheng-feng
“Dalmatian pelicans are mainly found around the marshes and wetlands of southeast Europe and China and any that are seen in Taiwan are considered a vagrant bird,” he added.
A vagrant in ornithology refers to a migratory bird that appears outside of its normal habitat range and could be considered lost.
Birdwatchers from the Wild Bird Society of Tainan are currently tracking the pelican.
Lee Chin-tian (李進添), the proprietor of Taijiang Fishing Paradise near the Sihcao Wildlife Refuge (四草野生動物保區), on Tuesday said that he saw a pelican swimming in the reserve’s pond while he was with a group of clients.
The pelican flew away 30 minutes later, he said.
A British birdwatcher on Wednesday said that they saw the pelican in Tainan’s Cigu District (七股) at the mouth of the Gaoping River (高屏溪), which is the main habitat of the black-faced spoonbill, birdwatchers said.
The Wild Bird Society said that pelicans were known to have visited Taiwan on two previous occasions, and both times the bird was seen in Cigu.
In November 1996 a Dalmatian pelican was sighted in Cigu and in 2004 a sighting was reported in the Cigu Black-faced Spoonbill Reservation (七股黑面琵鷺保護區). This year’s sighting was again at the spoonbill habitat, the group said.
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