Brown pelicans were frequent visitors to the Celebrity Xpedition during Kongo’s visit to the Galapagos Islands last week. The amazing birds are graceful in flight and have an uncanny ability to skim just inches above the waves while searching for food. The have keen eyes and always turn up when there are fish around.
In the little town of Puerto Ayora the brown pelicans are almost like pets at the local fish market. In the three images above pelicans wait patiently for scraps of fish from the morning catch then get into a mad scramble with a seal over who was gong to get the best pieces. In this case the seal won.
This was more of a traditional feeding frenzy where blue footed boobies and pelicans repeatedly dove into the sardine ball for their morning meal. Note the pelican at the bottom of the image above and how full its mouth is. Some pelicans became so full of sardines that they couldn’t take off afterward and just sat around floating until they digested the fish and could get airborne.
Travel safe. Have fun.
