I would first like to welcome everyone to August…or as I like to say “holy crap we are now less than two months from our annual Haunted Trail Event” (link here). Being behind is standard operating procedure when it comes to the haunt side of Intrigued, but thanks to my little mishap I am doubly under the gun. The good news is I saw the therapist today and I’ve apparently made impressive progress in getting the swelling out and my flexibility has jumped considerably. At Linda’s insistence, the race last Saturday and my return to the scene of the crime for an 8 mile trail run last night were both confessed. His response…”I had no doubt after our first session”. We are going to get along just fine (Linda rolls eyes). With that said, today’s therapy work did push my limits and now replicating Caine’s branding scene with a giant bag of ice (link here). Grasshopper no like putting ice on elbow. With the inevitable hand numbing, thought this would be a perfect time to go with a post I’ve been saving for just such a time – heavy on pictures, lighter on words.
Oh, almost forgot! We wanted to wish Jan (Brad’s wife) well on her St. Jude run that launched today. Her team is running from Memphis, TN to Peoria. IL to help raise money for that great organization. Last I heard she had finished her first leg and her next one comes before the sun comes up tomorrow morning – and you think I am the crazy runner ha. Watch out for those evil trees.
Hit the jump to “see” more about what has this Pelican’s tongue so to speak!
If you made it here, then you are lucky and do not have a “sympathy” stomach and start gagging when you see someone…eh, more like something else battling to keep food down. If you are that kind of person and just decided to tempt fate, well you are not going to like this next shot.
And definitely not going to like me zooming you right into splatter distance – “A wafer thin mint?” (link here).
I need to clarify a bit, it wasn’t so much that this Pelican was having problem keeping this fish down, rather an epic battle of trying to get it down in the first place. What made this so intriguing was I couldn’t figure out what was going on. At first it looked like this fish was putting up an amazing fight. For 10 minutes straight I sat there looking through The Beast trying to figure out what kind of Fish-Fu was able to fend off such an able adversary. Every time I thought the White Pelican had it swallowed, the damn thing would pry the bill apart and leap back out.
I had to see this play out, so took a seat on the nearby dock and started snapping away. After several minutes and a barrage of images on the digital card it came in close enough for me to get a better look at this fish to be reckoned with. To my absolutely amazement, this finned fighter I was so impressed with DIDN’T HAVE A HEAD. Looked around to make sure Allen Funt wasn’t hiding behind a nearby boat (link here).
Nope, this was not a prank…just your ordinary, everyday headless fish duking it out with by now a very pissed off Pelican. This went on for several more minutes until I started putting pieces together. To the right of me was a fish cleaning station that a pair of fisherman had just brought their catches to. The second those two anglers stepped on the boardwalk, the waters below them became filled with a horde of birds all yelling “Mine” – White Pelicans, Brown Pelicans, Gulls of every type, Terns and more. From time to time, they would throw out pieces of fish to the waiting mob. You can imagine the chaos that invoked. Apparently our featured Pelican had bitten off more than it could chew from an earlier cleaning. Maybe they use the wiggling of the live fish to help get it down the gullet and in this case there was nothing to help coerce it down. “How Bizarre, How Bizarre” (link here). And with that earworm..
“Every time I look around, its in my [throat]”
“It’s making me crazy (it’s making me crazy)
“Brother [Gull’s] in the back
“Sweet [Gull’s] in the front”
“TV news and [Bri’s] camera, there’s [Terns] in the sky”
“Every time I look around it’s in my face”
Ooh, baby it’s making me crazy”
“Making [gags] and starting [choking] before [he] knew [the Gulls] were gone”
As they say, you are going to have to sing it out loud now if you don’t want those Kiwis reverberating in your head all day hehehehe.
Needless to say I was absolutely mesmerized by this whole scene and continued to just sit there glancing back and forth between the initial specimen still struggling to swallow the fish filet and the battle royal going on in the waters below the fishermen.
Eventually noticed another White Pelican take notice of the struggling Pelican. If you have witnessed a squadron of Pelicans before, you already know how this plays out.
At first it starts out as a friendly “Hey how’s it going ol’ matey, what a pleasant day for a paddle”.
“Oh, you have a lovely catch there Peli, can I have a looksee,” (see what I did there, I crack myself up)
“Why that is a mighty fine catch, have you watched that Nemo show?”
“Remember that funny part when the Gulls all started saying ummm, what was it..hmmm… oh, I remember MINE!!!!!!”
Kudos to the Pelican with the fish, somehow it successfully fended off this “close talker” intrusion (link here). By now most of the water waders were congregated by the fish cleaning area, leaving our struggling Pelican a chance for some quiet time to try and figure out how to resolve this precarious situation.
I guess if you “Wanna know the rest, hey, buy the rights”. Ha, just kidding, I don’t really know how this all ended, there was plenty more to explore at Goose Island State Park in Rockport, TX and I had already spent close to two hours Sitting On the Dock of the Bay (link here).
Life Intrigued 