Till recently, pelicans were not “regulars” at the Vedanthangal sanctuary of Madras State. A party would occasionally visit the mixed heronry and spend a few days fishing in the home tank and in the waters around.

In some years, a pair or two have bred here. But in the last three years pelicans have been visiting the sanctuary oftener, and this year (the 1965-66 breeding season, ending about March) some two dozen pairs are nesting here.

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Cormorants, egrets, and herons and night herons breed at Vedanthangal in teeming hundreds. Openbills, spoonbills and white ibises are features of the breeding colony. It may be thought that the grey pelicans breeding here, not in a vast colony as at a regular pelicanry, but in limited numbers, would be inconspicuous in the midst of this thronging, varied profusion of over a dozen species of nesting water birds. But being much the largest of the birds in the sanctuary, especially in flight when their boatshaped beaks and ample, sail-like wings are displayed, the pelicans steal the show. Why have they come to Vedanthangal in increasing numbers during the last three years?

Well, many answers are possible to that question. It was even claimed that the recent improvements to the sanctuary, and its present efficient management, had attracted pelicans to the place. I know this sanctuary well — in fact, I did the entire groundwork here for the Government before it became one of the show places of the State — and I was curious to know how recent improvements had attracted new species to this centuries old sanctuary for breeding water birds.

An excellent macadamised road has been provided right up to the bund of the tank, and the bund itself has been widened, resurfaced, and provided with a watchtower and other amenities. Transport is provided during the season from Chingleput (the nearest big town) and a rest house is being built near the tank for the convenience of visitors.

In short, quite a few amenities have been provided for visitors, but these cannot possibly attract any water bird to the nesting colony. On the contrary, the dying off of a number of the old Barringtonia trees in the partly submerged grove in the middle of the tank has resulted in fewer nesting sites.

The pelicans, I think, have come here because they have been disturbed at other breeding sites, for example in the Nellore area immediately outside Madras city. Most water birds nest in company, like nesting trees standing in water, and need plenty of food for their breeding. The Vedanthangal tank, and the many broad sheets of shallow water around it, provide these requirements.

Night herons and egrets formerly nesting in Madras city have been driven away by human occupation of their nesting sites, and have moved farther afield. Very likely some of them now breed at Vedanthangal, for 50 miles (of even 200) is nothing to birds looking for fresh breeding ground.

I have reason to believe that when a large nesting colony is forced to abandon its long established home, water birds scatter in their search for fresh fields and pastures new. I think the pelicans arriving at Vedanthangal in recent years have come there for much the same reason.

If rains do not fail, it could well be that they will nest regularly at Vedanthangal and dominate the breeding colony there in the future. That, however, is a speculation.

(This was published on 24 January 1966)