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Always something new hanging around the farm....PIC
William81
Member Posts: 25,343 ✭✭✭✭
Cold, rainy day... Really windy 30-40 MPH winds. I look over across the road and there floating around in the lake are Pelicans ! This was a first....
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Pelicans are cool. I see a lot of them here at the beach.
Saw them for the first time this year yesterday on our lake here in Wisc. They are interesting birds. Unlike the brown they "corral" their pray rather than diving for it!
I thought they just lived around the ocean.
They have made their presence known on our lake for about 10 years.
They show up usually in the fall but I've seen them this spring.
They are easy to distinguish while flying, and are quite interesting to watch while in flight.
Glad they are not sea gulls
Bringing in another load of avian virus. We currently have a flotilla of pelicans paddling around the 40 acre wetland just west of my house. All of the infectious diseases that they bring in stay all summer to be spread by insects and resident waterfowl.
They're OK, just a bit fishy tasting. 😋
Just a bit of trivia. I read once that some sailors stranded some where during WW2 caught and killed a pelican to eat. They said it was the foulest, rottenness tasting meat, so bad they couldn’t eat it.
I made a mistake, it was seagull they tried to eat.
There is a reservoir out towards FT. Morgan Colorado that has an island in it that pelicans nest on. Seems like thousands at a time.
Well I'll be slapped silly. Told my goofy aunt that pelicans don't hang out in Missouri. Guess I need to eat a little crow. Pictures don't lie.
First time I ever saw pelicans was on a road trip through the state of Minnesota. I was quite shocked at the time and just had to dig out my road map to make sure I was still in the state of Minnesota! 😲
Now that's something I just never seen,heardof, or thought about growing up in Mo. Just, I'll be darn. Thanks for sharing this.
Susie, I hope that crow tastes better than the pelicans and seagulls mentioned earlier!
They were gone the next day....our place is about 6 miles as the crow flies to the Missouri River. I wondered if these and others were on the move when the weather went sour. The winds were strong all day and it rained off and on.
Pelicans one day......Bald Eagles the next...
"A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican,
He can take in his beak
Enough food for a week
But I'm damned if I know how the helican!"
I've watched them in "fishing formation" and they're quite efficient on the water, real teamwork. Watching them fly in a flock, they're (seemingly) very much not that. Growing up in SW Washington, in spite of living near a federal waterfowl/wildlife refuge, I never saw a pelican until I moved to Montana. I also never saw a white egret or a sandhill crane in SW Washington back then. Now, all 3 are present in numbers beyond belief. The pelicans and cranes seasonally, but the egrets year round.
@William81 is that a black bear on the bank?
Years ago we went to Florida for a camera show in Tampa. We stayed at the Indian Rocks Beach campground, about a block from the Gulf of Mexico. I bought a newspaper and was reading it by the pool out front, sitting there minding my own business. All of a sudden a great big orange bill was beside me followed by a large white body, It was a good thing I already evacuated my colon, or I would have had to change pants.
We just stared at each other for about 30 seconds then he wandered off.
Joe
Cow...
I'd tease you about that, Toolman, but I've made the same mistake in real life!
@NeoBlackdog It's OK, I was teasing him.
Don't they all taste like chicken ? ... 😆
They didn't come up with the name "FOWL" until after someone served up a plate of crow for dinner! 😁
A plate full would be attempted murder!
So cool....your place is amazing!
American white pelicans are mostly Inland birds, not coastal like the brown pelicans, though they go winter on the gulf coast and far down the Mexican coast. In spring migration several hundred to several thousand stop at Fountain Grove NWR near Swann Lake in NW Missouri. They can pop up almost anywhere in the state. They are occasionally seen in a couple of refuges in New Mexico.
Hey "He Dog" good to hear from you. They been visiting us there in Wisc. for years now! Don't stay too long and even head further North to breed.
YES it is !!!!