Tag Archives: pelicans

Beach Birds and Other Creatures

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A seagull found the perfect perch on a rooftop at the beach.

I have taken many photos and videos I want to share from sea lions to beach birds, beach and harbor views, the farmer’s market and fish tacos. I think I’ll be posting photos and videos from this vacation after we return home. In the meantime, here are a few photos and videos of wildlife.

We went to dinner by boat the other night and saw sea lions lounging on docks. There’s a little glare from the boat’s window in this pic.

I’ve never seen Mallards in the ocean before. Below is a flock of terns taking off.

Lone pelican floating in the waves.
Ducks waddling on the shore.
Sea Lions upset because we woke them up.
Pelicans in flight.

My favorite of the photos and videos on this post is the last one of pelicans flying low over the ocean.

What’s your favorite?

This reminds me of Ogden Nash and his famous Pelican limerick my dad used to read to us when we were young:

A wonderful bird is the pelican. 
His bill can hold more than his belican. 
He can hold in his beak 
Enough food for a week, 
But I’m damned if I see how the helican.

Beachy Days

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We found a new way to get to the beach we like. Our friends told us to look for a Coastal Access sign, so we drove slowly down a shaded lane behind the fancy homes and found it. In California, all beaches are open to the public. There has to be public access to every beach, whether the people living there like it or not.

Before we were parking at the busier end of the beach that doesn’t have houses and famous residents like George Lucas, Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher. We had to walk over railroad tracks and then scramble over rocks on a narrow pathway to the sand. It was hard for me with my healing ankle, but I managed to do it all on my own the day before we discovered this path to the beach.

This pathway is flat and easy for me to walk. It runs between mansions of the rich and famous.

Here’s the view at the end of the trail. I can manage these steps easier than boulders.

Here’s the view when you walk over the steps pictured above. In the distance is where we used to park and walk to the beach.

Interesting moments at the beach:

I finally got some pelican photos!

One day we got buzzed by Army helicopters. It was quite dramatic. The video below is when they approached the beach flying by Kevin Costner’s house and eventually flying directly overhead where I was sitting on the sand!

We were surprised by helicopters.

A more relaxing sight was watching dolphins two days in a row.

Dolphin sighting.

My days consist of beach walks, relaxing at the beach, watching waves and wildlife, physical therapy and eating my favorite foods. Also reading and writing of course.

What’s on your agenda this week?

Just sit

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White egret hunting on the beach
I like to watch the egrets hunting on the beach.

One of my favorite things to do besides taking long beach walks is to sit and read at the beach. One day over the weekend, I found myself alone on the beach without a book. My husband was driving our son to the gym for physical therapy. Our son’s girlfriend had walked to a surf shop to rent a board and wetsuit.

I wanted to get back to the house to pick up the book I’m reading — Shirley Jackson’s “We Have Always Lived in the Castle.” But I was a good three miles away from the house. So I just sat. It was one of the most peaceful afternoons I’ve experienced in a long time. It was too bright to surf on my phone. I couldn’t even read emails.

I watched the pelicans, egrets and sandpipers. I watched the waves. I felt connected to the sea.

Here’s the opening paragraph of the Shirley Jackson book I’m reading:

My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise, I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cap mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/89724.We_Have_Always_Lived_in_the_Castle

I read “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” when I was a teenager. My mom had a copy. Then I read it again after college. It’s been at least 20 years since I’ve picked it up. It is still captivating.

But sometimes I just like to sit. I find it beyond relaxing. Watching the waves I find similar to meditation.

I love watching the sunlight play on the waves.

Do you ever find yourself just sitting? Why do you think it’s good for us to be quiet — and not be reading, on our phones or computer? Do you have a book to recommend for my beach vacation?

Sights and sounds from beach walks

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I’m feeling very distressed with the news of 12 of our courageous military killed this morning. I am worried about 24 children from San Diego who haven’t been able to get to the airport in Kabul. I wasn’t in the mood to post, but as I’m waiting to hear from the President, I’m looking through the photos and videos on my iphone.

I’m sharing some of the joyful sights I’ve seen the past week. Horses on the beach with a cattle dog herding them with tireless energy. Pelicans flying and floating on waves. A sunset at Carpinteria State Beach. Shore birds hunting for sand crabs in the waves.

Watch the dog herding the horses.
Curlew at the beach
Curlew.
White egret on the shore
Egret.
Pelicans flying and riding the waves.
sunset at Carpinteria State Beach.
Sunset at Carpinteria State Beach.
Horses and cattle dog in the ocean.
The horses and cattle dog.
Sandpipers.

Skimming and soaring on the waves

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What do you call it when birds fly down low and seem to draft off the ocean waves like these pelicans? Skimming and soaring.

Soaring and skimming pelicans I spotted on my morning walk.

Here’s what I found out from a search online. Stanford University had this post:

Skimming: Why Birds Fly Low Over Water

A flock of sea ducks, pelicans, or sandpipers skimming low over the water’s surface is a common seashore sight. Far from shore, shearwaters often closely follow the contours of the waves, and gaggles of auklets fly rapidly just above the water. Skimming permits the birds to take advantage of an aerodynamic phenomenon known as “ground effect.” The patterns of airflow around a wing that is operating close to a surface are modified by that surface in a manner that reduces drag, the resistance of the air to the progress of the wing. Sometimes overloaded airplanes are sometimes incapable of climbing out of the ground effect even though they can maintain flight close to the ground.

Thus, everything else being equal, it is more efficient to fly close to a surface than far from it. But things are rarely equal, which is why birds most often tend to take advantage of the ground effect when the “ground” is water. The ground effect only occurs when the flying object is much less than a wingspan from the surface — and at such an altitude over land a bird would be continually flying among obstacles, through grass, and so on. Only water is sufficiently uncluttered to permit such close safe passage.

Skimming: Why Birds Fly Low Over Water