Pelican-watching

I don't know whether it's because the fishing was exceptionally good, or whether there were just extra-hungry babies at home, but the pelicans were extraordinarily businesslike this afternoon. Usually they fly lazily along the beach in little groups, swooping around over the Seawall and seeming like they're flying more to show off than for any useful purpose. But not today. Today they were mostly fishing, doing their breakneck dives into shallow water that always amaze me so much, and if they were flying they looked like they were going somewhere. There were a lot of them between the San Luis and 61th Street, especially - there must have been a whole lot of fish there. (That's also very near where the girl got bitten by the shark last year, and I know the fish were running out there then, I remember seeing them jumping out of the water. Maybe that's a spot the fish especially like, or something.)

I watch the pelicans all the time, but it's hard to figure out their patterns. I know they behave differently on different days - I assume it has to do with the weather and the tides and so forth, and tides aren't something I pay a lot of attention to, normally. Even driving up and down the beach twice a day, unless they're exceptionally high or low, I don't generally notice. (Weather? Suddenly much hotter, the last few days. Anyway, our weather tends to be very monotonous in the summer, unless there's a storm. The forecast will be high in the 90s, low close to 80, 20% chance of rain, practically every day until the weather breaks in the fall. And I do mean fall, late September at the very earliest. That seems like it's a long way away right now.)