The Year End always tend to be slow, and a time of jittery activity on my part, trying to catch up on photography and travel. This was a particularly windy and rainy day, when I ended up in Carmel. I went to the rather famous beach there and found a rather sizable pod of Brown Pelicans. I am used to seeing them in ones or in really small pods, gently traipsing along the ocean, reminding us of how they evolved from dinosaurs.
So, this particular afternoon I was thrilled and surprised to find SO man of these beauts, in various sizes, all huddled together on a very windy afternoon. I was wondering if this was a common phenomenon that I was simply not used to, over about 15 years of photography and observation!
For Natural History – Locals Rule!
Then, I struck a conversation with a lady that was there hiking with her cute dog. She was surprised to see the Pelicans too, but did say that they usually stayed atop set of trees at nearby Point Lobos and that maybe the wind had driven them down off their nests.
This made sense. They were all coming and going, sitting on the beach and didn’t mind or harass their smaller neighbors such as the gulls and others. Of course, I haven’t had a chance to get scientific confirmation of this yet, but I did go back to the same beach this Sunday and there was no big pod of Brown Pelicans on the sand!
Reference:
- Learn more about these wonderful birds here: https://www.nps.gov/chis/learn/nature/brown-pelican.htm
