Brown pelican taking off in front of the bridge.

Pelican flying by in front of the bridge.

Pelican preening.

Posing (I think he was trying to sleep standing up).

Taking a break. This one has a bluer bill than most. With that brown head, I wonder if this is a juvenile. As I was editing this, I noticed the fishing wire hanging off his foot in the back right side of the picture.

Not sure what happened to this bird. Looks like a nasty scrape. Will the salt water help that heal?

Stretching his wings.

It’s a hard knock life for a pelican that hangs out at a fishing pier. They were diving around getting lots of bait fish and many were waiting by the fishermen hoping for a handout. The risk of getting a fishing hook or getting tangled up in fishing wire is great here. It was a quiet afternoon when I was there but normally, on the weekends, the pier is lined up with fishing poles. There was already one pelican being picked up by someone to take to the bird sanctuary in a crate when I got there. I’ve heard there are volunteers from the sanctuary that walk the pier on the weekends looking for hooked birds. There are signs all over the pier on how to catch and unhook a bird but most people don’t bother and just cut the line based on number of birds that get taken to the sanctuary each year. Maybe we should ban fishing from fishing piers. Then just call them bird  piers. I’m sure that will go over really well.

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