The Pelican
A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His mouth can hold more than his belly can,
He can hold in his beak,
Enough food for a week!
I'm damned if I know how the hell he can!
-Dixon Lanier Merritt, a Southern newspaper editor and President of the American Press Humorists Association, penned this famous limerick in 1910. It is carved in stone and displayed prominently at Brook Green gardens in SC.
Watching several Pelicans feed in the tributaries of Murrells Inlet, SC, I was taken by how often they fail to catch fish. It is fairly easy to mark a successful dive, as the stately bird will raise its beak skyward to send the fish wiggling down its gullet. I began keeping score. I counted a total of twenty five dives between four birds and could only verify a catch seven times. With a slightly better than 25% success rate, these gobbling fowl still are known as great fishers.
I guess nature confirms the old saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
1. Hunger for something will keep you trying.
2. The pain of failure is quickly forgotten once the benefits of success arrive.
3. Never give up.
It's amazing what you can learn from other creatures.
ReplyDelete-Taylor
Okay, you said I had to say HI!
ReplyDeleteI came to your blog because I was impressed by a comment you made in another blog--I too grew up on the coast, but now live far from it... In June, I was home and posted a photo I shot of the beach at sunrise (the perfect Comfort Inn type sunrise), with a flock of pelicans sailing over the surf.
I promise I'll try my very best!! ;)
ReplyDelete(Note to self: keep on trying)
It's so good to be here. So damn good. I'm simply delighted with the connectedness. Ya, baby!
taylor - 'other' creatures, indeed. well said, creature.
ReplyDeletesage - thanks for dropping by and for the 'Hi.' i'll pop over to your place, soon.
Monica - connections are good, yes they are. i see you had a recnt 'long losted' facebook connection as well. could this be THE GATHERING???? ;)
Not only have I visited (and EATEN AND EATEN at) Murrell's Inlet so many times in my life I couldn't count (when I was a kid we went to Drunken Jacks and several other spots I can't remember, and later, before decor became more important than food, FLo's), but relate to your post also in that I currently live on the oft forgotten VA portion of the Delmarva Peninsula in the middle of the Chesapeake, so I see quite a bit of the trusty old pelican. My Short People refer to them as either "Pecalins" or "PeliCAN'Ts".
ReplyDeleteMy husband's name is Tracy...do you enjoy having a gender neutral name as much as he does? Drives him crazy, and all the telemarketers think I am Tracy.
Sounds like you had a wonderful vacation in paradise recently. Michele sent me to say congratulations!
LDWSP - i actually grew up in the area. sand and sea are a part of me...
ReplyDeletei don't know that i grew up with a gender 'neutral' name. i heard "Kim is a girl's name" very often through the years.
thanks for dropping in.
I got to thinking about Pelicans and wondered if you've read Donald McCulough's "The Wisdom of Pelicans: A Search for Healing at the Water's Edge?"
ReplyDeletesage - can't say i have. i'll add that one to my list.
ReplyDelete