Playful Pelican

Ahh, the playful Pelican. I first spotted this one in silhouette with Catalina Island serving as a backdrop. Lord of the Tidepools!

Then he started a whole stretching routine that looked so playful through my camera.

And check out this yoga move with his head arched back and that flappy lower beak on top!

My mom used to recite this poem when we’d see these birds at the shore.

A wonderful bird is a pelican, 
His bill will hold more than his belican. 
He can take in his beak 
Food enough for a week; 
But I’m damned if I see how the helican.

-Dixon Lanire Merritt, editor of Nashville’s paper The Tennessean, 1910 (referenced in the North Coast Journal by Barry Evans)