More American white pelicans are migrating to Padilla Bay each year, but there’s no evidence of successful nesting — birders ask: Is a permanent colony possible?
To many in Western Washington, the American white pelican is an unusual sighting. Native to inland regions of the United States and Canada, as well as coastal areas of Mexico, these birds generally migrate far south of Washington in the winter, returning to freshwater lakes and marshes to breed in the summer. They rarely travel as far west as the Salish Sea — and even less often do they venture between the San Juan Islands and the mainland into Padilla Bay.
At least, this was the case until July of 2017, when wildlife photographer Michael McAuliffe spotted around 30 of them there.
“I believe they first showed up around 2016,” he recalled in an email. “When I heard about them being there I was quite surprised and definitely wanted to get some photographs.”
Yet this spring observers have noticed a dramatic population increase. Around 200 pelicans now appear to live year-round in the bay, according to North Cascades Audubon Society member Stephen Chase, and hundreds more have migrated up for the summer. Many are suspected to have come from McNary National Wildlife Refuge, Washington’s largest pelican breeding ground, about 300 miles southeast.
McNary was established in 1956, but a combination of hunting and pesticide usage prevented pelicans’ numbers from stabilizing enough to create a breeding colony there — or anywhere else in Washington — until 1994. Today, thanks to decades of careful conservation work and strict restrictions on human presence, the refuge has an estimated population of over 5,500 breeding adults.
As this population continues to grow, however, McNary’s resource supply remains stagnant. This forces juvenile pelicans to travel farther to find food and breeding grounds, hence their arrival to Padilla Bay.
“If you consider the size of the colony on McNary, the fact that they’ve sort of used up all the potentially good terrain that’s available, it suggests that they’re simply an offshoot colony, just looking for a new place,” Chase said.
Chase also said that these pelicans often seem to send a “scout” bird out to find suitable land, then arrive in much larger numbers several weeks later.
In the case of Padilla Bay, this “scout” would have found a generally uninhabited swath of marshy wetland, perfect for uncontested hunting and large enough to sustain a breeding colony. It couldn’t have predicted the giant uptick in human presence around the Fourth of July, though, as residents flock to the coast to visit an array of firework stands and set off massive displays.
Consequently, the pelicans at Padilla Bay still have not begun nesting. Juveniles and non-breeding adults remain, but any breeding adults seem to have moved on.
“My hunch is that fireworks spooked them off,” Chase said. “All of the nests were abandoned (after the Fourth). If there were any young, they were just simply left to starve and die. Since then, it’s almost all been first year birds or young adults that aren’t interested in breeding.”
Pelicans are notoriously picky with their breeding grounds and routinely abandon entire areas after minimal human intervention. Padilla Bay is also home to March Point — a popular beach location that sees a large increase in boat traffic around the Fourth of July — which introduces additional anthropogenic noise.
Seasonal disturbances like this have long contributed to the American white pelican’s resistance to nesting across Washington. Water diversions for agriculture and construction caused their original departure from Moses Lake in 1926, and now holiday celebrations threaten to do the same at Padilla Bay.
McAuliffe speculates that the pelicans will continue to migrate to Western Washington in the coming years, though he is unsure whether they will ever be able to breed there.
Chase is hesitant of either option lasting.
“If they keep having nest failures, I think they’ll just up and leave,” he said. “That’s kind of what happened at the colony that was at Moses Lake in the ‘30s. They were dealing with human-caused competition and just quit en masse.”
—By Josh Mossman
Josh Mossman is a fourth-year English Literature student at WWU, an aspiring environmental journalist and photographer and an enjoyer of all things natural.