Awakening
A large flock of White Pelicans made a stop at 3 Crabs last summer. They rarely do more than fly over on the Olympic Peninsula, but this was the second year they stayed for several days. I was lucky enough to have a friend text me from her beach front property at 6:30 AM letting me know they were here. When I first arrived on the beach another birder/photographer was there already. As soon as he saw me coming he said, "I might have known you'd be here!" Anyhow, it was a very foggy morning and you could barely see the pelicans huddled on a sandbar at low tide with heads tucked down. We had to wait about 45 minutes before the sun cut through the fog. Once that happened, they slowly started to wake up. They did a lot of stretching and extending their heads- opening their gullets. After they were fully awake, they sat side by side in a long linear line and paddled like that for awhile. It was kind of a funny sight because there were about 50 in the flock- it was quite a line. I really miss brown pelicans from California, these superbirds are the next best thing. I've been lucky enough two years in a row to see them.
