Flight of the Pelican: Beak-mounted GoPro camera shows a young pelican taking its first flight!

This video has been making the rounds…. Of course it has! It is one of the internet videos that makes one smile.

Stuff described it:

“Learning to fly . . . spreading your wings . . . letting your spirit soar . . . birds give us our metaphors for realising potential. Perhaps that’s why this video, that looks right into the eyes of a pelican taking wing for the first time, feels so good.“

The Back Story

According to the Greystoke Mahale Blog the young orphaned pelican [named “Big Bird”] was saved by staff at Greystoke Safaris in Tanzania after being washed ashore after a storm on Lake Tanganyika.

“He [Big Bird] was young but already large, maybe 3 months old then. He couldn’t fish without his flock. This species doesn’t dive for fish, instead they corral the fish co-operating with each other and then scoop the cornered prey into their large stretchy pouches below the bill. So we have been given permission from Tanapa, the park authority to feed him…

He didn’t fly for some weeks but with encouragement he got the idea. We aren’t sure how much flying he may have already done before arriving here but he was pretty shaky in his next attempts on the beach. We would run up and down flapping our arms and simulating flight for him. He would look on curiously until one day he showed us how it was done!“

“Big Bird”: The orphaned pelican who was filmed from the moment the giant bird first took flight.
Source: Grey Stoke Mahale Blog
http://www.nomad-tanzania.com/blogs/greystoke-mahale/flight-of-the-big-bird