You could see them from a couple miles away, a thin ribbon of white over a thin ribbon of beige over a thin ribbon of azure. The azure was the edge of the Atlantic. The beige was the low line of the sandbar. The white was a flock of American white pelicans, though “flock” implies some sort of ambition, as if they were doing something, or at least considering it. But really it was midday and hot, and even from that distance I was pretty sure they were engaged in what ornithologists’ never-ending science jargon labels “loafing.”
According to the folks at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, loafing is how behaviorists describe a bird that’s just standing around, not “doing much of anything.” The term also applies when they do it in groups.
Birds don’t read books or have hobbies. Birds like pelicans only need to feed a couple hours a day, fewer if they aren’t actively raising chicks (which they don’t do while here in the Keys).
They don’t seem to buy into the belief that idle time is wasted time. So why not spend a few hours a day, wings tucked, staring blankly into space?
I didn’t really care that the birds weren’t up to much. I was out in my boat and suddenly had a strong urge to see American white pelicans. It wasn’t a quest, more of a low-grade spiritual imperative, driven by the fact that I was about to head out of town for two weeks, and the knowledge that when I get back, they will most likely be gone.
So I throttled up and headed toward them, paying more attention to the depth finder the closer I got.
You tend to think of American white pelicans as middle-of-the-country birds; seabirds that have decided to branch out and specialize in lakes. (This idea may not hold up in an evolutionary sense.)
Their breeding range is a little more northerly than the one in my mind, with large, spotty patches of California, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming. The biggest one starts in the Dakotas and spreads north into a couple of Canadian provinces, which, according to my map, are called Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. They tend to winter in Texas, Mexico and Florida.
My memory of seeing them for the first time is still tack sharp. My wife and I were hiking on Snake Bight Trail in the Everglades on an early camping trip. We were moving rather briskly lest the swarms of mosquitoes would catch up and land on us.
But then, in the middle of an open section of coastal prairie, amidst all the coastal mud, the glasswort and the saltwort, we saw them, just overhead at first, an air wing of about 30 birds, all in a straight line. They were huge – wingspans about a third longer than the brown pelicans we see every day, and nearly twice the body mass. And they were all white, save for a thick, black trailing edge on their wing that gave them a kind of a formal air, as if they’d overdressed for an occasion, right there in the middle of all that nature.
They flew overhead in a straight line, then began to spin like a rotor, the inside bird moving the slowest, the outside bird the fastest, like skaters trying to crack the whip. They must have hit a thermal because the whole spinning lot of them spun up into a cornflower blue sky and disappeared like an apparition.
It was such a stunning sight that my wife and I both stopped slapping at the mosquitos and gave in to the anemia that was soon to come from the imminent blood loss.
I’ve seen them quite a few times since then, flying in high flocks over the beach at Curry Hammock State Park, or in a low line just over the water in the Lakes, or in a chaotic swirl above Barracouta Key. There is also, quite often, a lone bird hanging out by one of the ponds on the Key West Golf Course.
But the most reliable place to see them is on that sandbar, sometimes known as Bruce Key, between Woman Key and Boca Grande.
I got the boat as close as I could, anchoring in about 2 feet of water with an incoming tide. I put my binoculars and camera into a dry bag, then dropped over the side and started wading. The birds appeared closer than they were, and it was about a quarter mile of slow motion hiking across the sand. (Shoes might have helped.)
When I arrived, Bruce Key was empty. The American white pelicans, those tricksters, were actually on a further sand bar.
I thought about going closer, but the baybottom on the other side was starting to get that soft mucky feel that’ll swallow you up to your knees. And there was a deeper water channel running between me and them.
American white pelicans used to be rare in the Keys, but their numbers have increased steadily in recent years, to the point that they can now be considered regular wintering birds, though we’re not sure why.
Unlike their cousin, the brown pelican, they don’t plunge dive to feed, but instead hunt in packs. Forming organized lines, they collectively chase fish into the shallows, making them easier to gobble up. (They must also do this in the Keys, though I’ve only seen the behavior on the mainland.)
In a month or two, the adults would all grow these knobs in the shape of bell curves on the upper mandibles of their beaks, as well Mohawk-looking plumes on the backs of their heads. They would pair up to spend the summer raising small clutches of more white pelicans. And feeding would take up a much larger part of their day.
But at the time, they were simply standing, still as a group of statues.
I spent a while trying to get an interesting photo, but with all the distance and inaction, I gave up. (The photo here is from a different trip.)
Finally I just sat down in the sand and watched them blankly, joining them in their loafing.
