The American White Pelican is a very large white bird with black wing tips and a long, wide orange bill. They are graceful in flight, moving their wings in slow powerful strokes. White Pelicans nest in colonies of several hundred pairs on islands in remote brackish and freshwater lakes of inland North America. Shooting by poachers is the largest known cause of mortality, although the species is protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.