Birds of the World


Australian Pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus) Range: AU: inland Australia and Tasmania Edwards River, Deniliquin, NSW, Australia
Photograph by Patrick Kavanagh Copyright and usage info This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file for non-commercial purposes under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one.


Dalmatian Pelican (Pelecanus crispus) Near Threatened Range: PAL: inland se Europe to Kazakhstan and w Mongolia, s to Turkey and Xinjiang (w China) Antwerp Zoo, Belgium
Photograph by Hans Hillewaert Copyright and usage info This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one.


American White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) Range: NA: inland sc British Columbia and ne Alberta to wc Ontario (sw, sc Canada) to c California and Texas (sw, sc USA) Costa Rica
Photograph by Jorge Obando Gutierrez © Copyrighted, All Rights Reserved.

Much larger than the more common Brown Pelican.


Brown Pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis carolinensis) Range: NA, MA, SA: coastal s California to Ecuador including Galápagos (e Pacific Ocean); Maryland through Caribbean (w North Atlantic Ocean) Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States
Photograph by Tom Friedel © All Rights Reserved.

Often seen along the shore diving into schools of small fish with bill wide open.
Perched, cleaning, with breeding colors.
On water.
A dive at point of impact with water.


Great White Pelican (Pelecanus onocrotalus) Range: PAL, AF: patchily inland e Europe to e Kazakhstan; Sub-Saharan Africa South Africa
Photograph by Graham Searll © All Rights Reserved.


Spot-billed Pelican (Pelecanus philippensis) Near Threatened Range: OR: inland se India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and (?) Sumatra; extinct Philippines Thailand
Photograph by Daniel Koh (Singapore) © All Rights Reserved.


Pink-backed Pelican (Pelecanus rufescens) Range: AF: inland se Egypt, w, sw Arabian Pen., and Africa s of the Sahara; formerly also Madagascar and St. Joseph's Atoll (Amirantes group, nc Seychelles) Kenya
Photograph by Steve Riall © All Rights Reserved.


Peruvian Pelican (Pelecanus thagus) Near Threatened Range: SA: coastal n Peru to c Chile Paracas, Peru Similar but larger than the Brown Pelican.
Photograph by Tom Friedel © All Rights Reserved.

Very similar to the Brown Pelican of the northern hemisphere, but quite a bit larger.