This is a really random question, but here goes...
In Christian iconography, the Pelican is a symbol of Christ, because of an old legend that if her brood is killed (variously by the male pelican or by serpents), the mother pelican will peck at her own breast and then use her own blood to revive her chicks. Hence the Mediaeval poem:
Then said the Pelican:
If my brats be slain,
With my blood I them revive.
Scripture doth record,
The same did Our Lord,
And rose from death to life.
Now, I have a suspicion that this may not be an entirely accurate account of the pelican's natural behaviour...
But I was reading in a book that some birds peck the feathers from their breast to make a warm patch of skin in order to keep their eggs warm when incubating. Does anyone happen to know if pelicans do this? Could it be the basis of the legend?
BB
Hi BB....an interesting thought - the area you're referring to is known as the brood patch, and it's a featherless area under the bird that is only present during the nesting season. It's purpose is to keep eggs next to the skin of the adult, where it is warmer than if it were on the outside of a layer of feathers. The feathers will then go round the egg, giving it complete insulation from the outside elements.
Interestingly though, most birds do develop brood patches in the breeding season - BUT pelicans (along with boobies and gannets) do not develop the brood patch at all; instead they cradle their eggs in their feet when they incubate them by covering them with the abdomen, and warming the eggs from both above and below.
So where the basis of this poem comes from is a mystery - perhaps it arose for the very reason that they don't have a brood patch? and our medieaval cousins wondered how they protected their young....without one?
Help swifts by letting us know what they're up to - fill in the 2010 survey