The Australian Pelicans are found in majority of Australia, they are seen in fresh and salt water lakes as well as estuaries. The average rainfall is around 478mm each year. The pelicans are generally found in colder environments.
Challenges in their environment
The environment that they live in is shared with fish, pelicans often get tangled up with fishing lines and hooks. If left un-notice this can kill the pelicans. Humans can pose a threat to pelicans, during hunting seasons pelicans can get caught in the cross fire of arrows causing life threatening damage. Events such as oil spills that occur in the ocean also pose a threat to the large bird. The oil can affect their feathers which dry quickly to keep the pelican warm as well as allows them to easily fly with dry feathers. The oil on the feathers stops this natural process
Adaptations
A structural adaptation that the Pelican posses is having a large bill (as seen in Figure 2 ). This enables the pelican to collect pray that they catch such as fish. In their large bill the Pelican is able to carry it back to their home, where they could feed possible babies.
A physiological adaptation that the Australian Pelican experiences is during breeding season. The pelican's bill and pouch change colour. A small area of the pouch turns pink and the other part also turns yellow. Parts of the bill turn blue. This change only lasts for a short period of time.
A behavioural adaption is they drown birds (as seen in Figure 3) and some other pray before they eat it. This allows the Pelican to easily eat their pray without it escaping. They also rob other birds of pray they have caught. This makes an easy feed for the pelican especially when they are starving. These behavioural adaptations allow the young in particular to survive on their own.
Rythmic patterns
Environmental conditions causes a change of pattern for the Australian Pelican's migration. When certain lakes flood, the pelicans migrate to this area so they can lay their eggs in the preferred conditions. An example of lake where this happens is Lake Eyre. The pelican breed in large colonies. They fly from all over Australia to breed by Lake Eyre when it floods. Once breading has completed the pelicans fly back to where they came from. The pelicans are diurnal, mainly active during the day.