Prague Zoo sends 3 pelicans to London's St. James's Park

PRAGUE – Three great white pelicans are on their way from Prague Zoo to Britain to join a famed flock that has made London's St. James's Park home since the 17th century.

Keepers were carefully carrying the birds one by one Thursday morning to transport cages on of a van will take them on the 17-hour drive to the British capital.

It is for the third time the zoo has sent its pelicans to the park. It started with four birds in 1995 when the zoo was one of the few in Europe capable of breeding them. Three others followed in 2013.

Two males, Sun and Moon, and a female, Star, who were born in February, will join the current colony of three in London.

The pelicans were first introduced to the park near the Buckingham Palace in 1664 as a gift to king Charles II from a Russian ambassador.