November 5th, 2007
Brown Pelicans – part one
This is a continuation of the posts from my recent trip to California and Oregon. I’ll probably be jumping back and forth a bit between here and there for awhile yet.
As some of you may remember, last year, while Don and I were tripping along the northern California coast, we encountered many groups of Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) moving southward. When planning this year’s return to the coast, one of the wishes on my small list was to try to be in the right place to see numbers of Pelicans flying by. By luck, we saw many more birds than expected. Just after arriving at Crescent City, the weather turned quite stormy – lots of wind and storm surges. The first morning after arriving, we found many Pelicans gathered on the wharf in a section of the harbour. By the next morning, the numbers had multiplied to the point that almost every square foot of wharf was occupied by these birds (see above – click on image for larger view).
Later that morning, while moving along the shore to film and photograph the stormy waters, we came upon gatherings of Pelicans that were wading about in coves while waiting out the weather. Above and below are photos of these gatherings. The dark-headed birds are juveniles, while the white-headed birds are adults. It seems that when there’s a good-sized gathering of birds, the adults tend to hang out together, with the juveniles forming their own groups.
We spent some time photographing and filming Pelicans over a couple of days. It was a little amusing to see how they behave when wading about in the shallow water of the coves. Keep in mind that these birds are masters of flight and also quite adept at bobbing on the surface of very rough water. However, while wading in water of a few inches deep, they seemed to become very perturbed if it lapped up above their legs. They would wade along, wings raised up as they tried to avoid being splashed by waves. Their movements were quite solemn and fastidious compared to their reckless dives and crashes into the surf in pursuit of fish. I made a little .mp4 movie to show how the Pelicans behave when wading. I’ve removed the sound from that clip as the wind noise was very bad at that point. Here’s a second movie of the Pelicans as they lift off en masse after some unseen disturbance — if I remember correctly, someone with a couple of dogs came along the beach just then. The second clip does have sound — lots of water and wind noise, but you can also hear the fog horn in the background.
I have some more photos and a little more to say about the Pelicans, so will post a follow-up sometime soon.
Tags: Brown Pelican, Pelecanus occidentalis, Crescent City, California