Author: Melinda

I never really thought about it much- not being a bird person- but I have spent most of my life living in or near the California Flyway.  During childhood, I was fascinated by the formations of migrating geese and other birds flying overhead. When we lived in the Bay Area, I rediscovered the flyway, when we would drive over to the delta area under skies thick with birds heading south for the winter.  I was surprised last year, to see huge flocks of water fowl at the lakes in Prescott in late fall- so I guess we’re on the route for migrating birds as well.

Last week I spotted the three pelicans above on two separate visits to Willow Lake- and was thrilled.  I was used to seeing brown pelicans on the California coast- even a couple times in Benicia- but had never seen white ones except on Lewis Lake at Yellowstone.  After reading the paper yesterday, I discovered that there is a story here.  It seems that a migrating pelican became entangled in fishing line in Tucson a few weeks ago and was rehabilitated by a rescue group.  Unfortunately, his friends had moved on to warmer climes by the time he was ready to fly, so the group sought out other flocks for the pelican to join.  It turned out that a pair of pelicans had just been spotted at Willow Lake, so the recovering pelican was driven up here and released.  Evidently, the Tucson pelican is one of the three in this photo- and the group has now moved on.  In the shot below (in which one bird is out of the frame), I think the injured one might be the one on the right.

And in other bird news . . .

This was edited in the new Impression software by Topaz- I think this is one of the Van Gogh presets.  I downloaded a free 30 day trial of the software- it is so much fun!!!  I’m not sure if I’ll buy it- it is pretty expensive! But I’m really enjoying playing with it.