Pelecanus rufescens
Silhouette: Oscar G. Miranda · PhyloPic
In 3 days >90%
The pink-backed pelican (Pelecanus rufescens) is a bird of the pelican family. It is a resident breeder in the swamps and shallow lakes of Africa and southern Arabia; it has also been extirpated from Madagascar. The pink-backed pelican was formally described in 1789 by the German naturalist Johann Friedrich Gmelin in his revised and expanded edition of Carl Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. He placed it with the other pelicans in the genus Pelecanus and coined the binomial name Pelecanus rufescens. Gmelin based his description on the "red-backed pelican" that had been described in 1785 by the English ornithologist John Latham in his multi-volume work A General Synopsis of Birds. Latham had been sent a specimen from West Africa. The specific epithet rufescens is Latin for "reddish". The species is monotypic: no subspecies are recognised.
It is a relatively small pelican, although by no means is it a small bird. Its length is from 125 to 155 cm (49 to 61 in), wingspan is 2.15–2.9 m (7.1–9.5 ft) and body mass is from 4 to 7 kg (8.8 to 15.4 lb). The bill is 30 to 38 cm (12 to 15 in) in length. The plumage is grey and white, with a pinkish hue on the back occasionally...
Call0:08
Senegal · 2023
© Alain Malengreau · XC862719 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Recording0:13
South Africa · 2024
© Mahomed Desai · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0
Very likely
About 70% of wildlife watchers report a Pink-backed Pelican sighting in Saloum Delta National Park on a given day, based on 29 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data from 2019 to 2026. It is the 3rd most-seen of the 70 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to over 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Pink-backed Pelican sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Yes
Of the 25 parks where we can rate Pink-backed Pelican sightings, Saloum Delta National Park has the highest daily chance: about 70%. Next come Lake Nakuru National Park (Kenya, about 60%) and Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary (Senegal, about 30%). All parks ranked.
Same order: Pelecaniformes
The closest relatives of the Pink-backed Pelican that you can see in Saloum Delta National Park (order Pelecaniformes, Pelicans, Herons, Ibises, and Allies) are Great Egret (about 70%), Western Reef Egret (about 70%) and African Sacred Ibis (about 50%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Pink-backed Pelican is recorded against all the birds logged in Saloum Delta National Park (29 verified sightings from 2019 to 2026), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
