Vacations Past: The Brown Pelican and His Stare

At the Malibu Lagoon State Beach, there’s quite a lot of wildlife to see. Perhaps the most special is the Brown Pelican, a species that has been threatened by human activities. While D and I were there, there were dozens, perhaps hundreds, flying back and forth from the lagoon and the open sea. We sat on the beach where the ocean fed into the lagoon, I taking photos and he poking a stick at some unidentifiable organic matter he found floating in the water.

At one point, something in the lagoon startled them and they all took off, flying over our heads to the open sea, then back over our heads again to the lagoon to settle, at which point this guy looked down and seemed to stare right at us.

The Brown Pelican and His Stare
05 June 2008
Malibu Lagoon State Beach, Malibu, CA