On Lake Walcott - the US fish and wildlife service and the Idaho Department of Fish and game volunteers and personnel were out banding about 300 juvenile pelicans.
Mike Fisher says, "There is a lot of interest in pelicans these days and seeing what's happening out on the colony, how the chicks are doing, especially the target of this project to learn where these birds are going as they start to fly and disperse throughout the year."
There is another pelican colony on the Blackfoot reservoir near soda springs.
Officials put large colored tags on the birds with numbers to keep track of them as a group and also individually.
Martha Wackenhut says, "We want them to be very visible because we want to get return re-sightings on these birds. We have a different colored tag, a red tag for the Minidoka colony and a black tag for the wings of the birds of the Blackfoot colony."
They are hoping with this documentation process - they will be able to monitor movement within the area to keep track of when the birds come back and start breeding.
Wackenhut says, "We can tell if they come back to the same colony of if the colonies of Blackfoot and Minidoka have a lot of exchange and connection with each other."
There were reports the pelicans were in Southern California this winter.
And officials say they were in Wyoming - Arizona and other states in the fall.
Brittany Cooper - kmvt news.