Things I saw just walking around.

Lots of friends spotted at the lake today.

Lady ruddy duck, resting tidily on a small rock, probably on her way to breed somewhere cool:

When she saw me photographing her, she looked a bit indignant, then waddled off.

Resident pelican is getting all decked out in bright orange, head tuft, and the beginning of a beak bump poking out from behind the wing...

Eared grebes still going strong, but they'll be gone any time now...

I think I bore them: they're always yawning when I approach. Right before they dive underwater to show just how jaded they are.

A rare sighting of a land cormorant. It was pulling at some frayed string at the edge of the rowing dock. Nest materials perhaps?

Night heron with green and gray stripe background.

Some cheerful humans who got excited when they saw me pointing my camera into trees. So I took their picture too. They waved (not pictured).


And another in the series of "animals sniffing the camera."

Friends!

The pelicans at home

The newly-renovated boathouse/restaurant opened about a month ago, and I wondered what real estate the cormorants would stink up now that their old pier had been removed. Turns out they seem to have followed their old pier to the other side of the lake, where it's now sinking into the mud.


Here, various birds have had no trouble putting their feet up on the coffee table, and their poop all over the couch. Here we see a white pelican, likely on its way to the coast from breeding grounds inland; and double crested cormorants, which are common in summer but will probably leave the lake soon.

Though they nest in very different habitats, at this time of year the three species cross paths for an interspecific jamboree. And when brown pelicans come sit on the porch, they bring the moonshine. No. Not really. They just hum fragments of "Slough foot Sue..."

The brown pelicans have finished nesting in the islands of southern California and Mexico, and are now heading north...

...with an occasional layover on a crowded dock.

Unlike the white pelicans, brown pelicans hunt by diving from the air with a very impressive splash (which I didn't manage to capture.) Here's one post-snack:

It soon takes off again--

--and loops back around for another attempt. Come on, fishy!

Summer Company!

The solitary resident American Pelican had some company drop in for a few weeks:

I wonder if Pelican 1's presence attracted the others somehow. "Dudes, the cocktails at this bar are really good. You haaave to try the Brackish Algae mojito; can you believe it's muddled in a concrete trough? Soooo retro. "


Later I saw two of them swimming together, doing some "repeat after me" style foraging. First swim:

Then dabble...

They're so funny; they're like gigantic ducks when they do that. I wonder if their synchronized movements are related to breeding at all... the Western grebes do something similar, although their moves are clearly for style, whereas the pelicans could have been just eating.

Also, I noticed that their bumps are indeed gone, to the great keratin graveyard... this one just has a tiny trace of beak bump left:


On a slightly related note, I spotted a few other unlikely summer visitors the other day--a pied billed grebe, a ring-billed gull, and two coots. Where did they come from, where are they going? The Pelican has a diverse group of friends, that's all I can say.

How does the sun cut his hair? Eclipse it!

The thousands of geese at the Lake aren't the only ones getting a wardrobe makeover. Mallards also change their coats this time of year, and for a brief time they look terribly shabby and hardly any chic! I haven't gotten a great picture of it since, understandably, they like to hide from the paparazzi (and of course predators) during this awkward, flightless time.

On this mallard you can see that he's looking quite brown and scruffy around the eye, and it'll probably get worse as he continues to molt.

Pelicans are also supposed to have an eclipse plumage. Remember earlier when the pelican had that funny little head tuft? It has lost that, and is now sporting what looks like a bad case of head-mildew.

I remember reading that the beak bump falls off in one big chunk like a giant fingernail clipping. I'd love to find one of those lying around!

Pelican Fishing

I was lucky enough to catch the resident white pelican doing a little late-afternoon fishing.

I mentioned before that white pelicans usually fish as a flock, herding the fish into a tight school of easily scooped-up morsels. This one is all alone, but still manages to catch lunch. It uses its beak like a net, sweeping it in an arc and scooping up anything in its path. In the shallow water near shore, each time it scooped, the pelican scraped the muddy bottom and stirred up a lot of silt in the process. Was it searching specifically for bottom-dwelling fish? It didn't seem to mind eating a bit of mud in the process. I noticed that this pelican seems to be right-beaked: it always scooped to the right.


Got one!

The hazards of scooping are, of course, that sometimes you get a bit of algae stuck to your face.

American White Pelican

There is one white pelican that lives at Lake Merritt. The caretaker told us that it had an injured wing that healed badly, and so it was brought to Lake Merritt to live, since it can't fly anymore. They feed it fish to make sure that it's getting enough to eat, now that it doesn't have a flock to herd fish with, as it normally would. The fish probably is delivered in plastic bags, which is why if you approach the feeding gate holding a plastic bag, the pelican comes right up like a hungry stray dog. If pelicans would pant, I think this one would be panting.

One thing that's cool about pelicans is that their feet are webbed across all four toes. Other web-footed birds, like geese, have webbing across 3 toes, and then a stumpy little thumb doodad.




Also, hygiene is tricky if you're a pelican. With that giant beak, it can be hard to groom your armpits...


or brush in those hard to reach spots... like that fluffy bit on top of your head. Plus it's hard to wipe your beak free of coffee grounds, milk, or giant bumps on your beak.


Just kidding. The giant bump (and possibly the extra tuftyness) are actually there because It's Business Time for pelicans. That's also why the pelican's beak is a sexy and garish bright orange. Mmm.... carotenoids....

This picture makes me laugh because it looks like the pelican is wearing a tiny egret for a hat.


Here, the pelican demonstrates why it can't fly... but it's a chamption when it comes to doing The Robot. Also, check out the black wingtips. Black pigment makes the feathers more durable, and since flight feathers get totally punched in the face by the wind when birds fly, they can't just wimp out and be all "I'm raggedy and old cuz you flew on me too much!" No. They must be strong. Thus, white wingtips are Out this evolutionary season, and black is the new.... Black.


Finally, here is the pelican doing something weird. I didn't get a great shot, but it was pecking at the spigot and clacking its beak.


In conclusion, pelicans: cool.