Artist: Jackson Harvey
Year completed: 2019

The Australian Pelican is a large white bird with black wings and a pink bill. The Australian Pelican's bill is close to a metre in size varying from 40 cm in females to 50 cm long in males. Pelicans have huge wingspans of around 2.3 m - 2.5 m. You will not see baby pelicans on the coast as the adults fly large distances to breed in inland lakes in the goldfields during the wet season, or on secluded islands. Wild birds can live up to 25 years or even more. The pelican can often be seen around the Eaton Foreshore area, where they like to roost on rock platforms, swim in the estuarine waters and dip their specially modified feeding bills into the water to catch unlucky fish.