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Q has tried to modify the template I’m using to fix the problem, but it’s still messing up. Soon I will try to install some different templates to see if I can fix the problem that way.
K and I were hanging out at Sunset Bay, near the shore log, at White Rock Lake on Sunday afternoon. We were hoping some pelicans would fly in. The majority of the pelicans that were already there were crowded together in the marshy spit, where all they could do was preen and occasionally jab at each other if another bird annoyed them.
Geese started climbing out of the water. As K and I backed up to make room for them, we noticed a small white bird that was standing on the shore near a group of coots. It was almost entirely white except, like a pelican, for black flight feathers. Its throat was furrowed like Mister Mary Mack’s, which made me think it was a goose. But it was so small! It was only a little larger than a coot.
The bird had a very high-pitched chirp. K wondered it it were a juvenile of some type. I didn’t think so; although the bird was small, it didn’t have the awkward look of some juveniles, like the teenaged White Rock Lake geese.
When the mystery bird went into the water again, it spent most of its time around the geese.
I went home to get Q. I checked my bird books and decided that the bird had to be a Ross’s goose, although the bird I saw seemed smaller than the typical size indicated for a Ross’s goose. But it could be nothing else. Later I read that females tend to be smaller than males.
By the time Q and I returned to Sunset Bay, the Ross’s goose was hovering in the very shallow water right by the shore. When the geese in the water went back onto land to eat grain that had been laid out for them, she went right up there with them. She didn’t seem to be afraid of people—she didn’t seek them out, but their proximity didn’t faze her. She should have been more afraid of the other geese—they kept biting at her, and she had to weave through them to get access to the grain without getting hurt too badly.
The geese migrated back into the water and swam to the land by the dock where the pelicans like to loaf. She joined them, getting up on the dirt and foraging for greens.
Juveniles are supposed to have a stripe around their eye, and she has one that is somewhat faint. So K was right: the goose probably is still a juvenile.
She is probably a migrant and will be gone tomorrow, but Q and I were pleased that we got to see a brand-new bird, for us. Such a cute one, too!
Who’s a little cutie-pie? Ross’s goose! That’s who!
Today was supposed to be much sunnier and warmer than the past several days, so I went out to the lake to see what was going on. Unfortunately, a lot of other people had the same idea. A gullnado swirled around the dock as people tossed bread up into the air, not caring that the wind was causing the bread to change directions and pelt others standing nearby.
After about thirty minutes, I noticed a small group of pelicans soaring over the bay. They descended very quickly. As I tracked a juvenile coming down, I noticed she had a green tag on her wing. “Maybe a Minnesota bird,” I thought, but then I saw a second tag on her other wing. “A Salt Lake City bird! I haven’t seen one of those since S21!”
Then I saw the writing on the tag: UT12S21.
S21 had returned!
DID YOU MISS ME? I WOULD HAVE MISSED ME.
S21 was not my favorite pelican from last year, but she was one hell of a firecracker. I am looking forward to watching her antics if she stays at Sunset Bay.
Q and I had wondered if S21 would be back. She stayed for so long last year. Of course, we didn’t know where she would be going in the spring and where she might end up again in the fall. And she was a first-year pelican, and first-year pelicans have high mortality rates. We both really wish that the Bird Banding Laboratory would allow people who have reported a bird to access other reports about the same bird to see where else it has been sighted. It would be awesome to follow S21’s journey away from White Rock Lake and her return.
Welcome back, S21! I hope you stay!
This was the second time Q and I went out to Richland. The first time Q had been very nervous. We had just taken a trip to the John Bunker Sands Wetland Center, which was not at all fruitful. Q was worried that we would repeat that experience. Richland was also a much farther drive than John Bunker Sands, and he really didn’t want to go all that way for a bust.
He started feeling better after we saw the bald eagle. And the anhingas. And all of the wood storks.
We went back two weeks later, which was this visit.
We saw over a hundred pelicans loafing on the shores of the wetland cells and swimming in the shallow water. Only a few of them were adults. Not needing to fly north to breed, perhaps some of the juveniles wintering down south decide to bum around the area until it was time to fly further south for the winter.
We’re gonna poop on the loafing logs at White Rock Lake! Richland WMA pellies RULE!
The wood storks were the stars of this visit. Q and I were able to get closer than we had on our first visit. They perched on trees and stood on the roads that crossed over the cells.
See a stork walkin’ down the street. She’s just the kind of stork that I’d like to meet. It ain’t her head, her claws, her feet. It’s something much more discreet . . .
There’s a wood stork on the road. And she would really like a toad. All toads on holiday: let your tadpoles play. If you let this stork walk by, sweet family will die. Wood stork on the road.
Occasionally we would have to drive on roads filled with wood storks, great egrets, snowy egrets, American white ibises, cattle egrets, neotropic cormorants, anhingas, and herons. They would amble away from the car, and when we got too close, they would fly several yards further down the road. When we caught up with them again, they would repeat their actions: amble and fly. We were never able to get close enough for good sharp pics, but I’d rather not get too close than seriously freak out the wild birds.
WHY IS THAT HUGE WHITE COW COMING TOWARD ME?
A large number of wood storks were roosting in trees near the rookery. They are such weird-looking birds. I remember how I described them to Q before he saw one in real life: it’s got the head of a black vulture, the beak of an ibis, and the body of a pelican.
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: some wood storks in a dead tree.
Hey, ibises! Lookin’ good! How about we all go for a nice flight around the swamp?
Despite Elena’s overwhelming desire to be a ballerina, she could never master first position.
Juvenile male shovelers think that they are badasses? We will disabuse them of that notion!
Ewww, is that wood stork STILL creeping on us? Let’s go find another tree.
The rookery was on private land that abutted the WMA’s land. Cormorants, anhingas, and all kind of egrets nested there. Although we didn’t think they nested successfully, there were also a few roseate spoonbills!
It was Q’s first time to see a roseate spoonbill. I had seen some at Merritt Island, and I had briefly seen one flying in a flock of ibises on our first visit to Richland.
Right as we were about to leave, a turkey vulture landed near the road. She was only there for a couple of minutes before a mockingbird harassed her so intensely that she took off.
We will have to go back sometime this winter and see who is there.
Although it wasn’t a windy day, a pelican out in the water was having difficulty keeping her balance as she scratched her head. I laughed at her as she kept adjusting her wings to stay balanced.
Breathing is overrated, anyway.
The pelican who had been frightened away from the Log of Status was out stomping through the water. She tried to take off but was unable to do so successfully and floundered before getting back on her feet again.
Fuck this “walking” thing; it takes too damned long. I’m gonna swim!
She eventually made her way closer to shore, stopped, and began to preen.
But Mom, I’m only going to be out playing for a little while. Do I really have to wear five sweaters?
I CAN’T PUT MY WINGS DOWN!
The pelican who had successfully challenged her for the Queen of the Log position had just made a startling discovery.
Did this come out of me?
Here she resembles a Willie Stark–like politician soaking up the introductory applause before she begins a good ol’ rabble-rousin’ speech.
And now the Queen will do her imitation of her stuffy, out-of-it, non-populist political opponent.
Further out past the Queen of the Log log, pelicans who were lackadaisically hunting found some trash to play with. The younger bird seemed to enjoy swimming with the paper in her pouch, which I’ve seen a lot of birds doing when they are playing with trash out in the water.
Who said I would have to eat my words?
Then there were the soda bottle pelicans.
First there was only one, who kept trying over and over and over again to pick up the bottle. Her attempts attracted a nearby pelican to also investigate.
Come play with us, pelicansrulegullsdrool. Forever, and ever, and ever.
The second pelican managed to get a hold of the bottle by floating it into her pouch.
Luckily for the first pelican, the second pelican’s success was short lived.
Maria, I was here first! C’mon, give me a turn!
The first pelican’s luck abruptly changed, and she was able to take possession of the bottle.
How the hell do humans drink out of this thing?!
OH NO IT DISAPPEARED!
Both pelicans searched for the bottle again, but after several seconds the second pelican got bored and started to swim away. The first pelican was able to retrieve the bottle one last time and even tried to toss it into the air from her pouch, despite its weight.
WEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!
Another bird tried to play with an old beer can. I think it might have been the same bird who was playing with the paper, but I don’t have any way to verify my belief.
What else was going on?
Lillian decided that Constance and Taliah’s interpretation of Biff’s final confrontation with his father Willie was too dour and needed a burlesque striptease to liven it up.
Then I saw some action, but surprisingly, it wasn’t on the Queen of the Log log.
If there is a pelican equivalent for “looking down one’s nose” at someone, the bird who retained her position is totally embodying it.
The first pelican who had been playing with the soda bottle wandered off and had a good flap.
Constance, Taliah, can I join your theater group? Watch this: “Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.” Am I in, or am I in?
On the 15th I had noticed a new bird with a red wing tag. Based on the color and shape of the tag, I figured that she was from the Minidoka National Wildlife Refuge in Idaho—I had seen a pelican the past year with a tag the same color and shape who turned out to be from there. The problem was that I could only see two characters on the bird’s tag: 5J. There were three characters on the tag of the bird I’d seen the year before. The tag seemed to be tucked under the bird’s wing, and I just couldn’t read if there was another character. I hoped the bird would flap so that maybe the action would let the tag swing freely and I’d be able to read the whole code.
Success!
She grew up in a Minidoka town, had an egg-layin’ Mama, who hunted all around. But she grew up tall, and she grew up white, with those Minidoka birds on a Minidoka night.
5J1 did indeed originate from Minidoka. She was a second-year bird, hatched in 2013.
She flew down here, at an age before 3. She blew the birds away, was more than they’d seen.
At some point in time the Queen of the Log log had been vacated. Although I hadn’t seen the bird leave, I did see when a new bird arrived.
When I left to go home, I noticed a cute little squirrel hanging around near the dock. She would stand up to reach a plant stalk, drag it to the ground, and nibble on whatever seeds or leaves that she liked.
The next post or two will probably not be about pelicans to give myself and any readers a break, and then I will resume posting about the Migration Madness.
Dread Pirate Roberts had finished her bath and moved slightly closer to the dock to finish grooming.
It’s the Dread Pirate Roberts show! Starring Dread Pirate Roberts! Watch Pirate stand!
Watch Pirate flap!
Watch Pirate show off her Halloween costume as a plague doctor!
Watch Pirate groom!
Watch Pirate get sick of this shit and swim to the Shore Log!
As Pirate performed her repertoire, Lady Katherine completed a grooming session and capped it off by rising out of the water with a full-flap.
Lady Katherine doesn’t always flap after grooming, but she has done it enough that K used to watch her very carefully every time she groomed.
Thank you for fitting into the frame, Lady K!
When she descends with her wings held out like that, the flight feathers remind me of the fingers on the white gloves of mimes.
I went over to the Shore Log to continue watching Dread Pirate Roberts. She had hopped on near the end of the log and was grooming. The other pelicans on the log were just hanging out.
A funny thing about allopreening among pelicans: almost every time I’ve seen it, the preener was preening a sleeping pelican. Often the pelican being preened would wake up and be pissed off that it was being touched.
Maybe pelicans are the creepers of the avian world.
Dread Pirate Roberts is pretending to be Olivia Newton John’s Grease character singing in the Shake Shack; the pelican involuntarily cast as John Travolta, however, does not think that she’s the one that he wants.
I went back to the dock.
She looks like she was interrupted while plotting something and is now plotting against whoever interrupted her.
I love the way the water looks as it surges up from the splashing pelican.
The log pelican began to groom. Pelicans look so silly and adorable when they rub their heads against their preen glands.
Not all was peaceful in the land of the pelicans, however. From the distant waters came a challenger for the Queen of the Log position.
No way! Fuck off!
Flapping really seems to be a response to aggressive/frightening situations, at least based upon what I’ve seen. Challengers will flap; winners of a challenge will flap; losers of a challenge will often flap. When a noise or something frightens the pelicans and they stiffen up and go into alert mode, some will begin to flap.
Sometimes challengers will flap but then settle down after another pelican threatens to jab them. I really thought that the challenger was going to settle down and start preening after her vigorous flap. That wasn’t what happened.
Oh, she went for it!
I am amazed at how high pelicans can jump when they need to.
At least the power transfer is peaceful.
The challenger immediately went into a flapping frenzy, then began to preen.
The loser, too, flapped vigorously.
The pelican Schmendrick: “Magic, do as you will!”
Now she poses as though she is a figurehead on the prow of a ship.
The new Queen of the Log pelican flapped again and roused her feathers, secure in the knowledge that no bird in Part 4 would challenge her position.
