From My Cyberjournal 41 May 2004

In my teens, I chanced upon a paperback entitled "The Golden Trashery of Odgen Nashery" a collection of poems by Odgen Nash. Not for me the Elizabethan bards; Nash became my poet laureate. My Nash favorite which, after over 50 years I can still dredge up from muddy memory, went something like this: "A wonderful bird is the pelican His beak holds more than his belly can He can hold in his beak, enough food for a week I'll be damned if I know how the helican."

I have since learned that the pelican doesn't store it's catch in it's beak; instead, it uses it to scoop fish in water, squeezing the water out by pressing it's beak against it's chest and swallowing the fish head first.

Though bulky looking, these birds have light skeletal frames making them buoyant on water and great flyers in the air. Flying in V formation like WWII bombers, they can soar long distances as high up as 3 kilometers relying on thermals in the atmosphere. The biggest species thrives in Australia where you will find them in flocks most any place where there is a good body of water.

On the ground they have an ungainly walk. They show little fear of humans, expecting some kind of a feed from fishermen. These pelicans at Long Reef were gobbling up the carcass of fish thrown to them by someone who had obviously bagged a few fish which he had then cleaned on the beach to take his catch home as fillets. The pelicans were happy with the head, tail and bones. The silhouette of a fish tail is visible inside the beak of one bird.