no pelicans but …
Suzanne, over at Write by the Sea, Live by the Sea, posted a writing prompt concerning Brown Pelicans and asked for responses. Mine, I figure, was a bit too long for the Comments Box and decided to share it here:
When my husband and I were on our honeymoon in the Vero Beach area, we went up to Wabaso to the Disney timeshare to have a look. While we were meeting with one of the staff, I noticed the shadow of three pelicans, flying in perfect formation, going past in perfect timing as well — every 16 minutes they flew by.
I made a joke and asked it they were real or Disney Animatronics. They went south to north only and were so perfectly regular in their timing, they just didn’t seem real. The gal who worked there was shocked. “What pelicans?”
She had NO IDEA that these birds flew by at all. “No idea at all?” I wondered and was shocked.
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Back in 2005, when we were house hunting, I drove around and looked at places from the outside to see whether it would be worth rustling up our RE Agent and my husband to go have a closer look at properties. I found lots of places I liked from the outside, but hubby had some reason to not bother going back.
One was a building currently being used as a house but had been a hotel and still had its license. It has 2 1/2 acres, so hubby could have had his garden(s). It has a summer kitchen, so I could have preserved the produce from his vegetable garden.
And it was across the street from the town park overlooking the Mississippi with the trains running in between.
He said it was too far to commute and that was the end of that dream location.
My favorite part — a very well kept secret. PELICANS! White pelicans migrate through the area and come to rest in the area for a short time every year. There is not one single mention of them on the Department of Natural Resources website, the River Road website or the town website as being in the area at all. I can understand — the town has a population barely over 100 and other than that park there is no real parking in the area. No one wants a huge influx of gawkers. (Except the town has an annual arts fair and I cannot imagine where people park for that!)
We went looking for the pelicans on Sunday, sure that we were getting close to the time when they would be continuing their journey away from the Mississippi into the West toward their nesting and summer stomping grounds. We found noisy gulls (mostly laughing gulls and terns) but no pelicans. Still too much ice on the River for them. Once we found someone who knew anything and was willing to admit it, we were told that most of the ice needs to be gone before they show up — another two to three weeks, probably …
I plan to go back in two weeks …
Or PLANNED on it …
But the forecast for the next week to ten days is for a nasty four letter word beginning with “S” …
BAH!
Suse Reads 