Hank The Pelican

Hello from San Diego! As you read this I'm over at the San Diego Zoo, getting dosed with my first round of trainings for my new job. Hopefully all will go smoothly, and I'll be able to get into the zoo for free when that is all said and done with.

Since I went to Lake Merritt over and over and over again this winter, I got to the point where I began to recognize individual birds...the one Ring-necked Duck, the Redhead with too much white, the Black-crowned Night-Heron with the droopy wing, the crusty-looking Great Egret, the teenage Barrow's Goldneye, the celebrity Tufted Duck. But the bird that even nonbirders knew was Hank, the American White Pelican.

Hank is a dapper bird. Look at the size of her....her....horn? What is the name of that thing anyway? Well, you know what I mean, that thing is huge.

Pterosaur Face.

I had been seeing Hank there for years, but I just recently learned her story, that her name was Hank, and that he was a she.

According to a passerby (and the internet), Hank was found with a janky wing in Oregon, back in 2004. After it was determined she would not be able to fly again, she wound up in Oakland, of all places, at Lake Merritt's Rotary Nature Center. Every day, for the past 8 years, she spends her time at the nature center (where she is fed delicious fish) and the small islands just offshore. Since she is such a stud, she now attracts free-flying white pelicans to the lake every year to hang out with him, which apparently never happened before her arrival.

On my last day at Lake Merritt, they had drained the scum ponds at the nature center and were filling them with clean water. Hank got stoked, and started doing all kinds of weird stuff.

If you had seen how nasty that water usually is, you would want to dunk your head in there too.

Although you would be considered whorish to count Hank on any kind of official list, she still gets cred from her less disabled pelican relatives and probably spends inordinate amounts of time wishing she could fly someplace else more suited to copulating with a female. At least she has the distinction of being the biggest damn bird on the lake, and makes passing children cower in fear...a toddler could fit in her throat pouch, no problem.

Nom nom nom nom nom.

People don't usually think of pelicans as being crested birds. Now, people will know better.

I am not used to having such giant birds cause tsunamis a few feet in front of me, even if they are only half-wild. I can't imagine what holding one of these birds is like...prolly a mixture of sheer terror and blood.

Hank can easily pass for a wild bird when she wants to. Don't forget to say "hi" to her if you find yourself at the lake.