One of the things I enjoy the most about this location is the plethora of birds that cruise these waters. We're tied up to a dock at the marina, with our starboard side alongside the dock. The port side looks out over what we call "the lake". (It's actually a small bay whose name I cannot recall.) The birds fly around all day but about 5PM (coinciding with our cocktail hour) they get particularly active. We like to sit up high on our fly-bridge where we have a nice view of the surrounding waters and the sky overhead.
Mostly we have 3 varieties of birds-----the usual Seagulls, Cormorants and Pelicans---oh so many pelicans. We'll occasionally see Frigate birds flying high overhead but they seldom come down close enough to be exciting. We'll also see Osprey soaring overhead---but they, like the Frigates, usually don't come down very close.
Seagulls are actually kind of boring. They fly by, very seldom diving on prey. Their flight pattern seems to consist of fairly relaxed wing flapping and some occasional soaring for short spurts. But they're pretty fast in the air. About the only time they are a bit interesting is when they've spied someone at the fish cleaning station when they congregate and fight for morsels and then chase the one who succeeds in snagging the fish guts. (Remember "Finding Nemo"?------Mine, Mine, Mine, Mine) They don't like to fly too close to the boat but will occasionally fly over close enough to concern us with the possibility of a little doo doo being dropped on our decks.
Cormorants are a bit more interesting. They're terrible flyers---flapping their wings violently to get off the water and continuing their rapid flapping as they fly to their next destination. There's no soaring involved. They fly like they mean it. But they fly very fast, once airborne. The don't seem to want to mingle even with others of their own specie. They are excellent swimmers and divers. They'll stay down for minutes at a time often surfacing with a fish in their mouth.
But my favorite is the Pelican. A wondrous bird the pelican. His mouth can hold more than his belly can. I love to watch them fly by. Some of the adults are huge with 6 foot wingspans. They fly beautifully and gracefully for such a large bird. They'll fly by, flapping their wings gracefully and leisurely and then soar for 6, 7, 8, 10 seconds, often dropping down to inches off the water where they soar often toward a water landing. As opposed to the pelicans I use to observe in Galveston Bay these pelicans don't dive straight down into the water after their prey. In fact, I haven't seen one of them do that dramatic dive. I don't know how they get their food. Quite often you'll see them flying and soaring in pairs. Are they mates or just following each other? Sometimes you'll see 2 or 3 flying along and then 3 or 4 or so will change their course and fly with them. I don't know where they're going or why they seem to be more active during my cocktail hour (just before sunset). Perhaps they're flying home for the night. Rush hour? It really is a beautiful sight and I continue to be entertained by the beauty and grace of their flight.
Well-------You can ignore some of what I said above. After I started drafting this post we went out to the sand bar with our folding chairs to enjoy an afternoon of sitting in the water, sipping a beer (and smoking a cigar) and listening to music from our friends boom box. Looking off toward shore--about a mile away---I saw what I thought were waves breaking against the shoreline. But it was a calm day and there were no waves to speak of . It turns out that it was a large number of pelicans diving for fish in the manner that I had been familiar with back on Galveston Bay. There were so many of them diving that it truly looked like a breaking wave. Then, later, back on the big boat at the marina I saw this going on across the bay:
