When I had learned of the experience of banding pelicans, of living the life of a research biologist for a day and having the adventure of going to a remote island and seeing a nesting colony few people would ever have a chance to see I had no idea of the terrible price my senses would pay.

Carrol Henderson had shown me the photos of his experience, I begged him for a chance to see this colony.  I dropped whatever name I could and used any tactic possible to get out there.  Sure, there had been some jovial warnings of the smell, but I was cocky and said that if I could handle vulture vomit, I could handle the pelican smell.  I thought the smell would just be bad breath from what the birds ate or from fish leftovers around the nest.

Jeff DiMatteo, who has taken over the pelican banding project for his friend and mentor Al Grewe, through St. Cloud University, bands pelicans every year around Father's Day.  He gathers a group that consists of ornithologists and university students.  There are two distinct types of people:  those who have done this before, got hooked and come back year after year come bankruptcy or divorce and new students who have no idea what they are about to get into.  If you don't absolutely love banding pelicans, you don't come back.

We sat on the boats low to the water. Western grebes and loons swam in the water nearby.  As we neared the first island pelicans jumped into the air and flew over and around the boat.  The closer we got to the island, the further the parents got.  As we docked on the pelican island, the parent birds landed in the water or on neighboring islands to observe our activity. These are not the noble birds I've read about that would pierce their breast when there is no food so the young could survive on their blood.  These were weenies who jumped ship and hoped for the best for the stranded young left behind.

Jeff pointed to a carcass lying in the grass.  He warned that we would find dead pelicans on the island and we were to look for bands on or near the legs and turn them in.  He glanced around and said that there doesn't appear to be a large number of dead birds so we shouldn't be concerned.  From where I stood I could see at least 10 carcasses.  Life in a pelican colony is harsh.

When pelicans hatch, they are orange, naked and ugly.  They sit on the ground and cry for food.  At about three weeks of age they begin to walk around and join into groups called pods with other pelicans.  In a pod, if you are one of many when the predator comes you are less likely to be eaten. The safest place to be is in the middle so those on the outside are more likely to be eaten.  However if you are in a large pod and are cornered, the ones in the middle risk being trampled.  Our job was to surround a pod and grab birds and place bands on their left legs.  We were to surround small pods; if a pod was too large, we were to break it up into smaller groups to prevent trampling.

As you walked the island, it seemed that you were suddenly in another universe.  The temperature was cool, but the aroma of old fish and wet bird hung in the air.  As I walked ahead with the rest of the group, the vegetation was low and sparce.  Eventually the pelicans fecal material would kill off all the vegetation on this island, but at the time there were still some pockets. 

I took a step and my foot slid.  I looked down and for a moment I paniced as I realized I was stepping on a young pelican.  On closer inspection I discovered that this bird had been dead for a few days already and I had not killed it.  As a trudged ahead, pelicans barked around me and pods ran for the cover of the vegetation. 

Three other banders walked with me as we honed in on a pod and surrounded it.  The birds feet made a slap, slap, slap, slap sound on the hard packed soil as we approached.  We surrounded them the group of fifteen leaned into each other desperate to escape.  I grabbed the first bird by the breast and was agast at the feeling.  I guess I was expecting the firm feel of a Thanksgiving turkey just taken out of the refrigerator after properly defrosting.  It's breast felt soft and saggy in my hands and it grossed me out.  I grabbed the left leg and dragged the bird across my lap.  The young pelican barked in protest as I applied the band. I was securing the small piece of metal, I felt a warm liquid penetrate my pants and moisten my knees.  My initial thought was that the bird had pooped on me, but it was worse...much, much worse. 

A few seconds later a pungent aroma of spoiled turkey and fish that had been sitting in the sun for three days in 90 degree weather and 80% humidity accosted my nostrils.  My eyes watered, my lungs refused to inhale any more and my stomach was about to add it's opinion as a rush of nausea took control of all my motor functions.  I realeased the bird and turned away.  One of the experienced members smirked and said, "Someone got the first vomit of the day."

"Vomit?"  I thought to myself, "These birds vomit?!" and suddenly it all came together as I realized the horribly cruel joke that had just been played on me. 

Turkey vultures are well known for their defense vomiting.  It serves two purposes: 

One, if you have just finished gorging on a carcass you are much heavier than you were before and therefore taking off in a hurry is quite out of the question.  The best way to lose weight fast and be airborne in a hurry is to upchuck and drop a load.

Second, nothing is more distracting to a potential predator as rotting flesh that has just been vomited up and flung towards your face.

For years vultures were considered a raptor falling into the same category as eagles, hawks, owls and falcons.  A few years ago they were reclassified as being more closely relate to storks and taxonomically are closely related to other water birds like pelicans... so of course they would engage in defence mechanism vomiting.  And now I am trapped on this island with a small group of people, charge with banding 5000 barfing, old fish smelling water turkeys. 

God help me.  I was not prepared for the gooey, slimy mess that was oozing onto my trousers at this moment.  This was bird one at around 5:30am in the morning.  One bird down, 4,999 more pelicans to go.

"Pelicans disappeared as a breeding species from Minnesota in the early 1870s (reportedly from harassment by people who would travel from town to shoot pelicans for sport on weekends). After an absence on almost 100 years, breeding pelicans returned to Minnesota in 1968 when a small colony was established on an island in Marsh Lake (near Appleton).

Four years later (1972), the late Dr. Alfred H. Grewe, Jr. visited the island and banded 10 young pelicans--the entire year class--beginning the long term annual banding program that I took over for Dr. Grewe in 2001.

Through the 1970s, the colony grew and initiated nesting earlier each year. By 1983, the colony had expanded to the point that the original island was overcrowded. That year, approximately 100 nests were found on the mainland on the east shore of the lake. The following year (1984), five subcolonies containing over 1,265 nests were found on the mainland. Pelican numbers continued to increase through the 1980s, and in 1988 the mainland nesting areas were temporarily abandoned in favor of a new, larger island in the lake. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the pelicans slowly began to abandon the original island, concentrating their efforts on the new island, the mainland, or one of two smaller islands adjacent to the mainland subcolony. By the late 1990s, the pelicans essentially left the original island to cormorants, gulls, and terns. Also by the late 1990s, the colony was producing an estimated 10,000 young pelicans per year.

There are now 4 or 5 additional pelican colonies in Minnesota (and several failed attempts in other locations), but these colonies are all much smaller than the Marsh Lake colony. Although pelicans are seen in many locations throughout Minnesota during the summer, the majority are nonbreeding subadult birds, or in the case of last summer, additional adults that dispersed after abandoning the breeding colony at Chase Lake, North Dakota. In 2002, I was able to organize a flight and professional photographer to obtain aerial photos of incubating birds at the Marsh Lake colony, from which I counted 16,942 nests (33,884 breeding adults) which now represents the largest breeding colony of white pelicans in North America."

-Jeff DiMatteo, head of the pelican banding project