Bird of the Day: Pelican

I've seen plenty of pelicans on boat rides and while walking on the beach since I moved to Margaritaville. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned them in a number of posts--and, indeed, pelicans merited a bird of the day mention last spring not long after I bought my house. Until a couple of Sundays ago, however, a quick fly-by was the only back yard sighting. The recent excitement began with a very large pelican paddling by our boat dock. Then came the breathtaking swooping and diving. It was the pelican super bowl around here with my mom and me cheering after each splash.

I've learned that while there are eight species of pelicans, only two do the amazing dive. This acrobatic feat now occurs with some regularity just outside my window. Unfortunately, being the ridiculously bad photographer that I am, I've only been able to capture the dive's aftermath.

This morning there were two pairs of pelicans (or the romantic in me imagined them to be pairs) floating by in the water while two more pairs circled and dove. Why so many pelicans all of a sudden? It's mating and nesting season. And with the perfect nesting environment in the massive sand dunes beyond the canal less than a block away, I'm guessing that there might be an opportunity for viewing the maiden flights of baby pelicans in a couple of months. Baby. Pelicans.

photo credit: the picture of my mom and me was taken by M with her iphone. The iphone is, according to M, the best invention since fire.

I didn't die, but maybe I'm delusional (see previous post)

I didn't die from eating the inedible gill of a rock crab (see previous post,) and while I am completely annoyed with the pending real estate transaction in which I may or may not sell my house, I did find a trillion dollars lying on the grass outside my condo complex today. HOORAY!

And while the IRS still hasn't let me off the hook for a teeny weeny misunderstanding, which I was sorely reminded of this afternoon when I paid my quarterly taxes, I was not carried off by pelicans during my five-mile walk on the beach the evening before last.

And while I may soon begin to introduce myself at parties as a failed writer, I have for some inexplicable reason been invited with a nice personal note to resubmit to the literary journal that I regarded as the creme de la creme on the list of journals that comprised my last batch of multiple submissions (all but two of a dozen have sent rejections, and one journal actually rejected the same piece twice.)

And while I am currently shuttling between  two half-furnished houses where I never seem to have what I want or need, I am fully aware that this is a problem of the 1%.

And while manufactures of nice lingerie, do not seem to understand that a woman my age might actually want to buy and wear such undergarments, I have succeeded in finding a couple of matching ensembles which have underwear that conceal about 80% of my stretch marks, though the enthusiasm regarding that success was mitigated by reading recently in a New Yorker short story a description of an unattractive older woman who wore "lurid lingerie."

And while I am tired and unusually cranky this evening, I am counting my blessings.
Margaritaville is a much better locale than Divorceville.

Bird of the Day

Brown Pelican. 4:00 this afternoon, swooping low over the water just over my patio fence.
And this evening, two more sitting like sentries along the canal.

Pardon the awful photograph. Those white blobs are the pelican's heads.