White pelicans flock to Lake Merritt Wildlife Refuge to greet Hank

OAKLAND — Being the first wildlife refuge in the nation, the bird sanctuary at Lake Merritt has quite a history of visiting birds.

“Not only are we on a migratory path, but we also house injured and senior birds that can no longer fly with their pack,” says Stephanie Benavidez, the supervising naturalist of the Lake Merritt Wildlife Refuge since 1974.

Two of their more famous injured birds were Hector and Helen, a pair of American white pelicans that had made Lake Merritt their home until they died at the ages of 27 and 29 years old, respectively. Hector died in 1985 and Helen in 1999.

Naturalists from Klamath Falls, Ore., who had heard about Hector and Helen, sent one of their own injured white pelicans to the Lake Merritt refuge to live out his life about nine years ago. They named him Hank.

For the first three years in his new home, Hank was the only American white pelican on the lake. Then he got a visitor, a white pelican that would stay for a couple months at a time during the migratory season. After about a year, two more started showing up and then over the course of the last four years, the population of American white pelicans has grown to between 13 and 23 pelicans.

Benavidez, who has observed this welcome migration of white pelicans, believes that they are from Hank’s original pod from Klamath Lake “and they are staying for longer periods of time.”

Although this area has many California brown pelicans year-round, the white pelicans are somewhat rare in the history of the Lake Merritt Wildlife Refuge. Although it is late in the migratory season, which usually runs between September and February, Benavidez says, the birds will follow the fish migration. The California brown pelicans, the more independent and opportunistic pelican, will fly low to the water looking for schools of small fish, like smelt or anchovies, to be pushed to the surface by diving cormorants, and then they will dive deep in the water to scoop up as many fish as they can.

The more delicate-looking white pelicans will paddle into the fishing frenzy and dip their heads to scoop the fish.

Lake Merritt walkers can observe this feeding frenzy as they make their way around the lake.