Local Summer
Birds Overheard: Issue 2
September has returned, and although the sun still blazes down on San Diego’s coast with its usual late summer ferocity, our weekend crowds have begun to subside. As the frameless windows of vacation rentals darken across the city, one feels the approach of those magic weeks known as “local summer”, when an after-work beachgoer can secure a firepit on Mission Bay with relative ease. San Diego has entered its golden month, and crisp October mornings beckon from across the calendar. If you’ve lived here long enough to savor the seasonal variations and feel puzzled that most visitors skip the good stuff, look to the waves. A better-informed crowd, California brown pelicans, are soaring home from their nesting colonies in Baja and the Channel Islands.
For those of us deluded by the “grindset”, who work diligently to demonstrate our value through creative output, the irritating thing about pelicans is that they seem to excel effortlessly at everything. They arrive at their leisure, gliding inches above shoaling waves on updrafts so slight that any moment a wingtip might slip into the water. Just before the wave breaks, the pelicans will swoop up its face and catch air, using the elevation to coast over to the next set. By linking waves together, they can travel for miles without flapping their wings, a trick researchers at Scripps believe could save them 60-70% of flight’s typical energy cost.
Brown pelicans apply the same relaxed approach to their professional lives. Paddle out past the break at Sunset Cliffs, and you’ll likely see one at work. From thirty feet above the water, it scans for sunlight glinting off schools of anchovy, sardine, or mackerel. Spotting its prey, the pelican folds its wings and drops out of the sky, rolling upside down in a move that resembles the “Split-S” maneuver fighter pilots use to ambush enemies at lower altitudes. Some ornithologists believe this trick allows the bird to maintain a line of sight with its meal while minimizing the energy required to reach it: when performing a Split-S, both pelicans and human pilots ease up on the throttle, allowing gravity to control dive speed.
When the pelican hits the water, it’s moving at roughly 40 mph, and the impact can stun fish six feet below the surface. Scientists still don’t fully understand how the bird survives the fall — let alone retains consciousness — but it seems to involve both anatomy and technique. Just before entry, the pelican shoots back its wings and tenses the muscles around its neck. As it slices through the surface, water (and usually fish) fills its pouch, air sacs in its skin inflate, and thick protective membranes close over its eyes. The combined effect cushions the skeleton and organs by transferring force into flexible tissues.
Watching the lazy arc described by a plunge-diving pelican, one feels a familiar tug — the desire to achieve similar mastery over a craft, the apprehension that a window is closing. Although they probably can’t relate to these residual effects of Protestantism, pelicans share a common grievance with labor: corporations value profit over their survival. The first brush with extinction came in the mid-twentieth century when the insecticide DDT worked its way up the food chain. Many local pelicans nest on predator-free islands such as Anacapa and the Coronados. In 1969, visiting researchers from the Nat found desolate colonies strewn with deformed eggs. High concentrations of DDT in the birds’ bloodstream had lowered calcium levels, producing weak shells that collapsed when the parents tried to brood. These findings contributed to a growing current of public discourse and environmental activism that culminated with the passage of the Endangered Species Act in 1973.
Collective action works wonders both for labor and birds, and pelicans recovered quickly after the government banned DDT. Today they’re easy to spot. For an up-close view, approach the bait barge in Quivera Basin by kayak. You’ll find the pelicans there, drunk on fish, regard you with the sleepy indifference of a Mission Bay tourist soaking up the sun.
Birds Overheard is a column and linocut series published in Mail Mag, a monthly zine by Burn All Books.
