In the past 20 years, Brown Pelicans have pushed their northerly breeding boundary into Maryland, most likely due to the change in climate. These new colonies are increasingly adopting remote islands in the Chesapeake Bay for their nesting colonies. Dave Brinker, the regional ecologist at DNR, has been monitoring their colonies since their first nesting attempt in Maryland. Every summer, I help him and DNR monitor the numbers of breeding pelicans. Nestlings are banded, and some blood samples are taken to look into carried diseases and parasites.
