{"id":1097,"date":"2012-03-05T19:56:05","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T23:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=1097"},"modified":"2012-03-05T19:56:11","modified_gmt":"2012-03-05T23:56:11","slug":"pelican-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=1097","title":{"rendered":"The Pelican Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many of you are familiar with my long sordid past with the aviary species. If not, read this<\/a> or at least content yourself with this bit of knowledge: historically, something about my presence appears to compel many a bird to, well, release<\/em> while in close proximity to me. Thus, I view the aviary species with trepidation born out of experience, even though in all fairness to the species, they seem to have kept their distance since we moved to Carolina.<\/p>\n

So I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to disclose this latest development, knowing full well that many of you may think me now lost forever.<\/p>\n

Okay, here it is.<\/p>\n

I think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m being tracked by a pelican.<\/p>\n

Literally.<\/p>\n

Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t judge me; my fears are rooted in fact.<\/p>\n

It all started last Wednesday when I took the small people to the beach after school. We intended to only stay for a few minutes, so naturally we ended up staying almost two hours.<\/p>\n

It was wonderful; the temperature was in the high 70s, the sky was clear and sunny, and as it was a mid-week winter day, the beaches weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t besieged by tourists yet.<\/p>\n

But they were besieged by the aviary species, which was all well and good initially, as they all seemed to respect my laws of personal space.<\/p>\n

In fact, it may have been my brazenness that really led to the tracking. We were all playing in a small section of beach where the tides were cutting deep into the sand, when we noticed a pelican standing calmly nearby.<\/p>\n

In my experience on our old island, almost always, I saw pelicans when they flew parallel to the coast, gliding just above my house. It was rare to see them land and walk the beach when any people were around. Now that I live on the salt marsh on our new island, I see egrets regularly, but I rarely see pelicans unless I go over to the ocean side of the island.<\/p>\n

So seeing this one, so close by on the beach, was nothing short of fascinating for us. I quickly gestured to the small people to stand back until I could get a picture, and I inched forward with my camera ready, getting closer and closer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>After taking pictures, I stood in awe for a moment, noting the coloring on the pelican\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face that I usually can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see when one is flying above me. I was so enamored, I even began resurrecting thoughts of purchasing a bird reference book<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I also noted, as I mentioned in my earlier post, that it was, in fact, bloody huge.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Then I signaled the small people, and they all moved as the small army that they are toward the pelican, to see how close they could get. This, of course, sent the pelican upward, and we all turned to watch it fly, skimming just above the surface of the ocean for a time before landing on the beach 100 feet or so away from us.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>About 20 minutes later, I was sitting on the beach with my daughter, watching my sons play in the distance. It was late afternoon at this point, and the sun was making its descent directly to the left of me, leaving that blinding, white light in my face if I turned in that direction. This was probably why I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see the pelican moving toward me from the left until he was almost upon me.<\/p>\n

I made a strange sound, one I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really care to share with pretty much anyone ever, and tried to scoot backward quickly. Then I remembered my An Island Mom obligations, and fumbled for my camera.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The pelican took off into the blinding white, landing maybe 20 feet away this time. I kept my eye on it and watched as it dove into the water nearby, hunting for food. For the entire time we sat there, the bird stayed close by.<\/p>\n

The rest of the day was uneventful, but the next afternoon, I noticed a pelican fly in a small U-shape above my house, flying in from the marsh, curving above my house, and then flying back out into the marsh again. The next day, I caught a pelican doing the same thing, only this time making more of a wider, crescent shape above me.<\/p>\n

Then this morning, I found one hanging out in the marsh in front of our house.<\/p>\n

We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been in this house almost 7 months, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve managed to probably double my number of close pelican sightings in 5 days. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to think this is a coincidence, but I am wise in the ways of the aviary species and their penchant for gifting<\/em> me.<\/p>\n

This does not bode well.<\/p>\n

Therefore, in a measure to protect my family and mainly myself, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m hereby instituting The Pelican Watch.<\/p>\n

Other than pelicans and watching, I have no idea what The Pelican Watch will involve yet.<\/p>\n

But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m officially on my guard again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many of you are familiar with my long sordid past with the aviary species. If not, read this or at least content yourself with this bit of knowledge: historically, something about my presence appears to compel many a bird to, well, release while in close proximity to me. Thus, I view the aviary species with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[80,482,971,831,105,100,22,970,972],"class_list":["post-1097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-islandlife","tag-beach-life","tag-beach-living","tag-birds-on-the-ocean","tag-coastal-life","tag-island-life","tag-island-living","tag-pelicans","tag-pelicans-on-the-beach","tag-the-pelican-watch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}