Wayfaring Pelican

If you enjoyed the last post from the Cleveland Lakefront, I hope you will enjoy this as well.

 There is a bit of a birding celebrity hanging out at Wendy Park at Whiskey Island, and no, I don't mean Greg Miller.

Enjoying the Tall Ship Festival- he was a gate-crasher.

 A Brown Pelican, a most seaworthy bird, has become the newest avian rarity to land in Ohio.  You know it is a "good bird" when Jim McCormac chases it!  The excitement has been hard to contain, even for those of us who have seen Plenty O'Pelican (sounds like an upcoming James Bond movie co-star.)

His resounding  "yawp."

 We all know that a pelican's beak can hold more than his belly can.  But we do worry if the fish this fellow is getting will be adequate for a sea-born bird.

We are used to the occasional White Pelicans in Ohio, and even expect them annually. However, a Brown Pelican is a very different thing.  This bird was the happy find of Jen Brumfield, uber-birder and Cleveland mega-lister. We know not what strange winds brought him (or her) to our shores, nor how long it will stay.  But we do know this is a rarity of the first order for Ohio.

So, if you keep an Ohio list, make haste for the city and see this bird. And while you are at it, put in a few good words to your higher power that this young bird makes it back where it belongs, to tell tales of tall ships and sky scrapers on Ohio's North Coast.

 Special "Thanks" goes out to Cleveland's top-notch bird (and plane) photographer Chuck Slusarczyk, Jr for allowing me to share all of these wonderful photos!  It is a major feat to photograph a bird at these distances, and we appreciate Chuck's ability to help us see this wonderful bird that has captured Cleveland's heart.