A selfie video taken by a flying pelican has gone viral, garnering nearly 980,000 views since it was posted on Feb. 27.
The now-famous camera-toting flying pelican, however, did not know how to fly at first. It learned how to fly with the help of the humans who took it in after it was abandoned by its flock during a storm in Tanzania.
The male Great White Pelican was found on the shores of the African Great Lake Tanganyika where it was washed up after the storm. The staff of Greystoke Mahale resort adopted the pelican, named him "Big Bird," and cared for him for months. Big Bird could not fish without his flock so staff members had to feed him. They also noticed that he could not fly so they taught him how to by taking him to the beach and flapping their arms around, urging the bird to do the same with his wings.
A GoPro Hero 3 camera was attached to his beak, trained towards its face. The footage shows Big Bird walking around on the beach while watching his human teacher flap his arms, and then shows Big Bird himself finally spreading his wings and soaring over the water, with the majestic Mahale Mountain in the background.
The epic selfie video lasted only 2 minutes, but showed the water and the mountains from Big Bird's point of view, with mesmerizing and uplifting background music. Big Bird returned to the very spot from where he took off, right during sunset. It was an equally dramatic touchdown.
"He didn't fly for some weeks but with encouragement he got the idea. We aren't sure how much flying he may have already done before arriving here but he was pretty shaky in his next attempts on the beach," said a staff member.
The male Great White Pelican usually weighs between 12 kgs and 15 kgs. Its wingspan of about 3.6 meters is the second largest for any bird, second only to that of the Wandering Albatross. Experts said that Big Bird may have belonged to a flock of Great White Pelicans that live in Katavi National Park, which is about 93 miles away from the resort where he was found.
"We are so proud of him and he is such a clever bird. He can fly!" said his trainer.
This is the second time that a GoPro camera was sent sailing through the sky and connecting with animals. Just last February, a group of skydivers were preparing to dive from an aircraft when their GoPro camera accidentally fell thousands of feet, right into a pigpen. The camera kept recording the whole time, presumably until it ran out of battery. The pig that found the camera, though, is not enjoying the same kind of fame that Big Bird now has, because, after all, it just found the camera and even tried to eat it. It wasn't a very glamorous footage.
Now if only a GoPro camera can actually find and film a pig that flies, that would really be something.
