As luck would have it, my visit to Jamestown, NY coincided with the unexpected visit of two American White Pelicans.
The American White Pelican is one of North America’s largest birds, or as Sibley puts it “Immense…” It is four to six feet in length and weighs up to 16 pounds. Its wingspan is an impressive NINE feet. It is a white bird with black wing tips, and a long, wide orange bill. Their trademark feeding pouch is bright yellow-orange.
The bird in flight is really something to see, and I just added “white pelican in flight” to my mental sticky note of must-see avian adventures. I may have to travel far to increase my chances, however.
Pelicans winter on the Pacific and Gulf Coasts and breed in inland waterways westward from Minnesota and Manitoba to California. The birds cut a wide migration swath, however, which is why a few very occasionally wind up all the way over here in New York. In other words, this is the kind of bird that shows up as a Sibleyan “green dot” in a few eastern states.
The weather couldn’t have been better during my weekend retreat in Jamestown–the air was warm and the light was awesome. Perfect for photography.
The pelicans were just ten minutes away near the Ashville Marina on the western shore of Lake Chautauqua. Their rare presence kept calling to me. Up-to-the-minute sighting reports flooded my iPhone email application. Out of respect for my NBF (non-birding friend), I resigned myself to find the birds on Sunday, on my way out of town. Visions of the birds kept bugging me. I swatted them away like fruit flies.
Sunday arrives. Along with rain. Buckets of rain and thick, black clouds. The latest iPhone reports said, “The pair of White Pelicans were very cooperative as I observed them from the end of Vukote Road on Chautauqua Lake near Ashville.”
Another one: “The American White Pelicans are still at the Ashville Bay location as of 9:15 this morning. I saw them near the semi-submerged log, both preening their feathers.”
Oh, this will be easy, I thought.
So I circled the end of Vukote Road and it was sans Pelecanus! Nothing but an offshore raft of ducks. I looked and looked, thinking: how can I be missing GIANT WHITE BIRDS WITH NINE FOOT WINGSPANS?
Then the conversations started: Did I travel all the way to western New York just to sit on my goddamn arse, 10 minutes away, when I could have taken THIRTY MINUTES to see this RARE bird preening in the perfect sunshine? And now it’s GONE? After it was here 80 minutes ago?
Was there anger? Check. Dismay? Check. Sickness in my stomach? Yes, even that. Not only would I miss a rare bird, but I was watching some good blog material wash down the sewer drain…Calamity Jane!
But wait! There was no submerged log at the end of Vukote Road…Maybe the birds had moved back to their original marina location overnight. Eagerly, I traveled northward in the pouring rain to find that famous marina with its waterlogged preening platform.
I pulled in, sunk my shoes in the spongey mud, and trekked to the shoreline. Ring-billed gulls soared overhead and a cackling band of grackles convened in a nearby shrub. I looked out beyond the dock. In between rain drops I spotted two large, white forms in the distance.
They were my pelicans, all right. They were HEADLESS, however. And they remained headless in crappy light for the duration:
White Pelicans on Lake Chautauqua, NY, March 29, 2009
Today’s Lesson: When a rare bird calls in good light, abandon friends, family, work and all other obligations and just GO! Mark Twain put it best: Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
What are you waiting for?
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WOWzeeeeeee POWzeeeeee, this is awesome!!!! Love your website, Laura, and love ALL your blogs — so glad to have your beautiful words back on my computer screen!
Congratulations, you go girl!
love, love, love,
courtenay
Courts,
Gosh, I blogged for nearly three years before taking this one-year hiatus. It’s great to be blogging again. And to see YOU pop up on my comment screen.
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