If there’s a hurricane coming, they’ll hang out here for a bit longer because they know.” “They’re an incredible animal,” Ward said. On peak days, 200 or 300 of the birds can be seen swimming in shallow waters, according to Forest Preserve District of Will County program coordinator Erin Ward. This year’s fall migrants have already started massing near the Four Rivers Environmental Education Center, the closest place to Chicago for reliable large-scale viewing. “It’s been a huge success story,” Forbes said.
Now the breeding population is estimated at 32,000 in Minnesota alone. In 1966, the overall breeding population was estimated at 40,000. The American white pelican population is now estimated at a healthy 180,000. What’s clear is that the American white pelican, which was in marked decline in the 1960s, is more plentiful - and therefore more likely to be seen in the Great Lakes region - thanks in large part to decades of wetlands restoration nationwide, according to Andy Forbes, Great Lakes deputy chief for migratory birds at the U.S. Others suggest that a storm may have knocked the pale giants - each with a 9-foot wingspan - off their traditional routes.
He also pointed to the rise of invasive Asian Carp, a plentiful food source for the birds. Theories abound as to why the birds began to appear in larger and larger numbers: Neise said that the pelicans, which traditionally breed in Canada and the Great Plains and migrate to the sunny Gulf Coast in winter, started breeding in northern Wisconsin, near Door County. As recently as the early 2000s, American white pelicans were so rare in Illinois that birders would travel hours to catch sight of one, according to American Birding Association webmaster Greg Neise, who has been birding in Chicago since the 1970s.
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