Pelicans are so cool!

This summer, I took a much-needed vacation at a South Carolina beach with nothing to do but enjoy the three R’s: Read, Relax, and Reconnoiter. We had a gorgeous condo on the sixteenth floor with a balcony overlooking the ocean. Every day, the balcony was visited by Red-winged Blackbirds, Carolina Wrens, and Fish Crows looking to exploit the tourist trade in the hopes of a handout. The balcony also gave us a splendid “bird’s eye” view of a variety of shorebirds. Which brings me back to the Pelicans…

Of all the birds I observed during my trip, these were hands down (wings down?) the most entertaining. Watching them skim the ocean, dive for fish and fly by in perfect formation was like a being at a Blue Angels show. No barnstorming, daredevil, precision flying exhibition could every compare to the aerobatics of this crew! It’s amazing how they can coordinate their every move. I imagined little headsets with transmitters and receivers on their own special frequency.

“Wingman, this is Squadron Captain. You are a little too close to Big Gulp. Pull up! Pull up!”

“Roger that, Captain. Sorry, I nodded off a little.”

I mean, you NEVER hear of mid-air collisions in the avian world, do you? How do you think they do it?? There’s so much we don’t know.

My favorite Pelican of all, however, is one I call “Gloria”. I spied her in a marina, sitting on a little fishing boat. Actually, “Gloria” was the name of the boat, but there was the bird on the stern with an outboard motor on one side, and a fishing rod on the other. The thought popped into my head:

This is how a pelican retires!

(Note: To see a picture of Gloria, visit the Humor Gallery on Mothering-Heights.com.)