The Pelican

Happy Saturday! :)

I am going to tell you another bird-related vacation story.  This one comes from Mexico in August 2012.

Corky and I took a vacation to Cabo San Lucas in August of 2012.  It was my first time ever going to Mexico.  We stayed at a Hilton (as always) and it was right above the beach.  And I do mean above, because you had to go down these stairs and a ramp to get to the actual ocean.  It had infinity pools, hot tubs, chairs to lay on... oh my god it was heaven.  

view from our balcony

Anyway, the second day we were there, we went down to the beach.  I remember I was wearing my bikini with this black and white romper thing over it and my Vans hat and aviators.  We went down the ramp and were walking parallel to the water.  The waves came up to a certain point every time when the tide was in so there was kind of this ridge of sand halfway up the beach when the tide went out.  At this point, the tide was out.  I saw, sitting on the sand ridge, a brown pelican.

photo found on internet

I, of course, did my signature bird squeal which sounds something like "OOOOOOOOOO!!!!" really high pitched.  Corky was unimpressed by the pelican, and went down to the water.  I stopped about 20 feet from the pelican.  He was just hanging out there, his bill resting on his neck/chest so that his neck was bent at at weird angle.  His eyes were open, he was kind of looking around.  

I took a few steps closer.  He didn't move.  I took another few steps.  He still didn't move.

I got to within about 10 feet of him before he noticed me.  Well, in all honesty he probably noticed me before, just didn't care.  He was sunbathing!  A very important task.  So I kept walking up, foot by foot.  When I got to about 5 feet from him, I crouched down.  He picked his head up and gave me the side-eye.  I stayed put and he settled back down again.  

Parking my butt in the sand, I sat 5 feet from the brown pelican for about 3 minutes.  Then I carefully scootched my butt closer.  1 foot, 2 feet, 3 feet.  Then I was right next to him.  He tilted his head to the right and looked up at me with his left eye.  In the sunlight, his eye was brown with gold flecks.

"Hey," I said, as though I was greeting a friend.  "What's going on?"

The pelican blinked in the bright sunlight, his nictitating eyelid making a quick appearance as he blinked.  

"Can I pat your neck?" I asked him.  He didn't move.  I draped my arm over my bent knee so the pelican could see my hand.  Slowly... slowly... I moved my hand toward the pelican.  He waited.

His neck feathers were very soft.  They looked as though they were wet,  but they were actually not.  I petted straight down his neck from the back of his head all the way to his "shoulders" or whatever.  I did it again.  And a third time.  The pelican closed his eyes.

All the while I had been approaching the pelican, people were walking by on the beach.  As I patted the sweet bird, people stopped.  One lady took a picture.  At least that's what Corky told me later.  I didn't notice them.  I was too busy bonding with my Pelicano friend.  

"You take a nap," I told him.  "I'll sit here and make sure nobody bothers you."

The pelican and I napped and sunbathed, respectively, for about 10 minutes more.  Then the pelican stood up, shook the sand off his butt feathers, and I swear he nodded at me.  Then he took off running down the beach, flapping his wings.  After a few steps he was in the air and soared out over the pier.  I watched him dive a few times.  One of the times I thought the fish was going to drown him!  But he like.. swam to the rocky pier!  After he ate, he flew out of sight around the backside of the resort.

I never saw that particular pelican again.