White Pelicans Refuse To Leave ... "HELL NO, WE WON'T GO!"

Most of the huge flocks of white pelicans that spend the winter around Cedar Key left a long time ago, but at least one group has stayed for the summer .

With fall approaching, it looks like they are going to qualify as year round residents, instead of snow birds.
I find that interesting, because it seemed that the scaup stayed here very late this year also.

They are just a few of the sights and puzzles seen from the bridges as I come and go.

Temporary Whiteness of Winter

Winter white out, ... Pure Florida style.





Glowing in the last few minutes of daylight, these white pelicans were resting on a shelly sandbar near North Key.



I do love the fact that they visit here.


They are a temporary seasonal gift of white ... like ice, snow , and sleet.

We could not resist them, so we turned the boat, shut the motor and let the wind drift us past this tiny bar covered in white.
Watching these pelicans seemed like a great way to burn off the last rays of a setting sun.

I've said it before on this blog, but I love pelicans for allowing me to "suspend reality" for a moment and visualize the pterosaurs of long ago.

I picture shorelines millions of years ago covered with quarrelling pterodactyls, while others snatch fish from the surface of the Western Interior Seaway.

I can see it so vividly with a little help from my Pelican lenses.

Call it pelican induced hallucinations ... or just call it weird, but I can see it so clearly in the presence of pelicans.

A few days later, while seeking contact with redfish, Captain Denny and I came across this flock of white pelicans and cormorants feeding together.

The photo above is a tiny cropped portion of this magnificent raft of birds.

What a sight.

Fleeting like snow, sleet, and ice.

But more real ...

... from where I float.

Pelicacaphony

Oh yeah. I love this one.

What follows is an unauthorized copy of the Peliterodactylican Flight Manual.

Step one: Get airborne.



Step Two: Flaps down, Airbrake over fish.

Step Three: Tuck in and plummet.

Step Four: Continue plummet procedure.

Step Five: Begin wing retraction to facilitate water entry.



Step Six: Streamlined water entry.

Step 7: Make a big splash.

Step 8: Gloat and rub in your success to your pal, Dexter.

"Did you see that last plummet, Dex ? Wow, I looked amazing. Caught a mullet too. You need a few plummet tips? Really, I don't mind showing you how it's done. "

Tuesday, the pelicans in St. Augustine Inlet were working a school of fish like a high school football team working a Golden Corral buffet.

A falling tide was funneling fish into a narrow kill zone and the pterodactyllic pelicans were taking names and kicking bass.

(That's fish humor right there)

In actuality they were probably after mullet, the "real" chicken of the sea.

It was pretty swooshsplashtacular with pelicans barely getting airborne before plummeting back into the sea after fish.

... and multiple plummets too! I was shooting like crazy and you can see from the over abundant selection of photos in this post that I had waaaay too many photos to choose from.

Although I was off Tuesday ... playing hooky to take my Dad to the doctor, my pelican time at the inlet came in handy back at work the next day.

It just so happens, I returned to school on Wednesday at a point in our Environmental Science class where the concept of "Canaries in the mind shaft" came up. We were watching a brief video called, "Coral Reefs, Canaries of The Sea" . I had a feeling today's kids might not know the canary in the mine shaft analogy, so I asked them, before the video, what that phrase meant.

Only in one of 4 classes, did anyone have an accurate grasp of the concept. I explained the history and the meaning of the phrase and then, with pelicans fresh on my mind, I gave them another example ... the DDT, pelican, eagle, osprey situation of my childhood.

Now, let me tell you, teenagers love it when you start out with, "Now, when I was a kid ..."

A few quick questions before I started the tale gave me this background info :

1. They have never heard of DDT.


2. They have never heard of Rachel Carson, or Silent Spring.


3. They had no idea that the eagles, ospreys, and pelicans that they see routinely (in this county) were on the verge of extinction in the 1970's ... due to DDT.

Well, they can't say that anymore, because I gave them an earful, with the point being that dropping bird populations amounted to "a canary in the mine shaft" ... just like dying coral reefs

Too think, ... we almost lost this.

Thank you Eagles, Pelicans, Ospreys of the 60's and 70's.

We needed the warning.

And we heeded it for once. (GO US!)

The question is ... will the indoor-oriented, virtual world kids of today notice the next canary in the mineshaft?

Guess Where I'm Heading ...

That's right ...


... I'm soaring over to the ancient city ...

... flying solo, so I may have time to land somewhere wild,

... or, I just might keep soaring.