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On my last trip to Fort Desoto to look for the white pelicans there were only a handful out on Outback Key. This morning, a few weeks later, I got lucky. There were a few other people milling around the parking lot preparing for the hike to the northern tip but I just got out of my car and took off. I got out on the beach and took a shot and could see a lot of the white pelicans far out in the lagoon. I was not wasting time and started walking.
I took the above with my phone. The sun was already up and I could see tons of the pelicans in the shallow water.
Some were standing in a little water (it was low tide) and some were farther away on a spit. They were all busy preening and I could see white feathers everywhere.
That pesky juvenile reddish egret had to get in on the action. He looks so tiny compared to the bigger pelicans.
About 15 minutes later more white pelicans started fly in.
They just kept coming, flying from behind a spoil island where they probably spent the night. They were piling up together. There were 2 groups of them each on a low tide sandbar. I could see St. Pete beach far off in the distance.
As I was walking up to the farther sandbar the pelicans on the closer one started to float over to the farther sand bar to join their friends. One by one they started floating in a long line across the lagoon.
They just kept piling onto the exposed sandbar, scrunching together to make room for more friends.
They were still flying in from behind the spoil island as well.
It looked like there wasn’t an inch of space left on this spit but they kept coming.
They were still floating from one spit to the other.
They were all crammed together.
And yet there was still more to come.
At this point we were all standing in knee deep water watching the remaining few from the closer spit (that was now covered in water as the tide came in). I think this was a record of white pelicans, at least that I’ve seen. They winter here and move around the area so it’s hit or miss as to whether you can catch this many together at one time.
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