Loading ...Did all you moms out there have a nice Mother’s Day?
I had a quiet, but lovely and delicious, day. My daughter (who I see more of now than probably all her teenage years between 16 – 18 combined, LOL) brought me a beautiful flower bouquet and some designer strawberries dipped in dark and white chocolate… yummmm. My guy is off on a fishing boat so I had the rest of the day to myself.
I went for a long walk on the beach and little did I know what a treat I was in for!
So I’m rounding the point and I see an odd “thing” floating in the water near some seagulls that I can’t quite identify. When you live on the saltwater, you see lots of odd things the tides bring in and out every day, but this “thing” is different in a way I can’t put my finger on. It’s quite a bit larger than the seagulls which gives me some perspective about its size, and I think I see it move, but I’m not sure if my eyes are playing tricks on me. What kind of flotsom is it, I wonder. Is it part of a tree trunk with a limb still attached?
So I pull my camera out of my day pack to zoom in and lo and behold… it’s a pelican!
What on earth?! A pelican? In Washington?!
I have lived on or near the water here for over 20 years. Never in my life have I seen a pelican in these inland water parts much less in Washington, period. When I think of pelicans, I think of places like Florida. I know they also have them in California and it’s occurred to me that they might be on the Washington coast as well (although I’ve never personally seen any). But here on the Puget Sound? Crazy!
Anyway, I thought it was very exciting. I took some shots and as I walked a little further I discovered four more pelicans. There weren’t any more than that. Where did they come from? It was a really windy, blustery night on Saturday and I wondered if maybe they’d been blown off course from some migration or something.
I spent over an hour watching and following them. They would float around for awhile, lazily poking their heads in and out of the water and coming back up with something in their floppy gullets. Then they seemed to go into some kind of feeding frenzy, flying up out of the water and floating on the wind currents while sizing up their prospects, and then shooting like spears straight down into the water. It was so cool.
I’ve tried to figure out what kind of pelicans they are. I’m thinking they might be Brown Pelicans, but so far they don’t look exactly like any of the pictures I’ve seen. Veddy interestink…
I’m probably more excited about this than anyone reading this, LOL, but here are some shots and a couple videos for your viewing pleasure. If you know what kind of pelicans these are and what they were doing here, I would love to hear from you. 
Four of them (the fifth one is out of view), apparently settling down for the day, preening and getting ready for a nap…
(… and a crane, just for good measure)
