Passport
Pelicans of the Outback
March 24, 2011 Leave a Comment
Watch Nature: Outback Pelicans at 7:00 p.m. Sunday, March 27 on Wisconsin Public Television.
What drives a bird with a primary diet of fish to make a thousand mile journey to one of the hottest and driest places on earth? No one really knows for sure. Year after year these large pelicans abandon their homes along the coastal waters of Australia and fly inland to the Australian Outback. The main push behind this journey appears to be large rainstorms that bring new life to once dry riverbeds and empty drainage basins. So how do they know that a thousand miles inland at this desolate location there will be food waiting for them? Maybe they’re smarter than we think.
