Louisiana State Bird - Eastern Brown Pelican

Are you interested in different species of birds, and would you like to know more about the Louisiana State bird?

Louisiana was the 18th state to join the United States, and officially became a state on April 30, 1812. The capital of Louisiana is Baton Rouge, and the largest city is New Orleans. The state nickname is “Sportsman’s Paradise.”

What is the Louisiana State Bird?

The Louisiana state bird is the Eastern Brown Pelican. Let’s learn more about the bird because it’s an interesting creature!

The Eastern Brown Pelican is large bird. It can be found along several different coastlines, such as along the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean, the coasts of the Pacific Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico. The bird can also be found throughout South America.

The Bird’s Appearance

You can recognize the bird by its distinctive appearance. The bird has a yellow head, and a reddish brown neck. The neck is quite long. It has an extremely large light brown bill. The bill has a pouch, thus the lower lip of the beak is much larger than the upper lip of the beak.

The pouch is quite important to the bird, and is used for a variety of reasons. For example, the bird uses the pouch to catch fish, feed its young, and the pouch is also used to cool the bird. The bird can cool itself using the pouch because the pouch is full of blood vessels. These blood vessels then lose heat near the surface of the bird’s skin.

Along the neck, the bird has white feathers. The main body of the bird is covered in brown feathers. The bird has webbed feet, similar to ducks. These feet are dark brown in color. As an adult, the bird grows to a length of about four feet. An adult Eastern Brown Pelican weighs approximately nine pounds. It has a large wingspan that is approximately six and a half feet to seven and a half feet in length. Although the bird is large, it is actually the smallest pelican species.

Diet and Habitat

The Brown Pelican is a carnivorous bird. They do not eat vegetation, and rather hunt for their food. They are a diurnal species, which means that the bird sleeps at night and is active during the day.

They primarily eat fish, although they sometimes eat other types of meat. For example, the species will also eat amphibians and crustaceans. It hunts by diving into the water as it flies over the surface of a body of water.

Groups of Eastern Brown Pelicans frequently hunt together, flying over the surface of water. The birds fly in a single line. When an Eastern Brown Pelican observes a fish in the water (or alternative foods that the bird eats), it will dive into the water and attempt to catch it using the pouch.

Nesting Behavior

The Eastern Brown Pelican builds a platform type of nest. The nest is primarily composed of grass and sticks. The bird collects the material to build its nest from its surrounding habitats. These nests aren’t located in one specific place.

Eastern Brown Pelican nests have been found simply on the ground, on an island of mud in the water, or even on the branches of trees. A female Eastern Brown Pelican will lay approximately two to three eggs at once.

These eggs are a chalky white in color. Both parents care for the young, and they care for the young for approximately eight to ten months. The young birds require a considerable amount of food, and will eat approximately one hundred and fifty pounds of fish in that time period.

After the 70s, the bird was listed as an endangered species. The numbers of the Eastern Brown Pelican dipped below ten thousand. However, since the eighties, the bird has no longer been considered in threat of extinction. Currently, the population of the Louisiana State bird is approximately six hundred and fifty thousand birds.