Thibodeaux

(my) first foto of Thibodeaux (a.k.a. the Cleveland Pelican)

Time has given me opportunity to play with a camera. I went from stained glass, and now i am after birds. I think, i went out looking for this brown pelican, seven times.  He has been summering on Cleveland's lakefront. This is the first time one has been seen here for such a stay (twice before a one day sighting had been recorded).

Big wind storms have been known to carry birds far from home. Brown Pelicans are usual to the Gulf coast, but can be along the Atlantic to Canada. Many are in south Louisiana (Cajun country). Those people were from L'Acadie, and expelled by the British. Acadia was renamed "Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Magdalen Islands, Maine...". Perhaps this fellow is also such a migrant, and what more Cajun (or at least French, as Louisiana had be sounding surname is there than 'Thibodeaux' (pronounced,  'tib-o-do').

My nephew saw him first. Instead of going to Wendy Park, as we did before, we drove behind Westerly Sewage. I made sure, i got one foto (at least). Snapped it quick, and then tried for better ones. He was there a few minutes, made a couple short flights and then flew over the lake until he was invisible.

.....more text and images to follow....time for lunch...

We were there looking at, and photographing Thibodeaux and others for just over ten minutes, and he left. We snapped some more fotos of other birds, and other things, and continued on. I asked the fisherman, at the bottom right of the foto supra, "Did you see the pelican to-day?". He said, "No, not to-day".

  Pelicans taking off, and landing, caught in a split second are not too graceful.

 Au revoir!, mes amis.

As we were about to re-enter the auto a woman pulls up, and parks, and calls out "Did you see him?". She had just come from Wendy Park. I told her, at some length, that he just flew off.

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postscriptum 21 August 2013: i have gone back along the lake shore a few times in search of Thibodeaux, including to-day. I have just read, the wrong shore. He flew northwest to Ontario's shore, just east of Leamington. Well, it was 87°F here to-day.