Yesterday, Verna posted about a pelican.
Today I am posting a photo of another pelican – a Pelican™ Case filled to the brim with our guns. I took this picture Sunday before we went to the range for target practice.
At the left is my two Glocks, in the center is Verna’s S&W revolver and on the right is her S&W and Para Warthog pistols.
Yes it was fun at the range, as ususal.
Pelecanus occidentalis californicus
Going back through our photos from a few weeks ago, this one of a California Brown Pelican stood out, so I decided to post it here. These birds look so wonderfully graceful in flight, but are sort of awkward-looking as surface creatures (see inset in the photo). Click on the image for the large view of this pelican in flight over the Palos Verdes coastline.
This interesting information on the California Brown is from Sweetwater Authority:
Pelicans are found on coastal salt water, beaches, bays, marshes and on the open ocean, most numerously within a few kilometers of shore throughout the year. At Sweetwater Reservoir, brown pelicans (up to approximately 50 individuals) have been observed regularly from late summer through fall, presumably feeding on the abundant fish population in the reservoir.
Population declines in the 1960s and 1970s were due to the agricultural use of organochlorine pesticides (DDT) which harmed reproduction by causing egg shell thinning and consequential collapse. Since the ban on DDT, the most current threats to the population are pollution, human disturbance of breeding colonies, loss or serious decline of food fishes to human over-fishing, specifically the anchovy, loss of post-breeding roost sites, fishing gear entanglement and bacterial infection resulting from overcrowding at fish disposal areas in harbors.
The pelican was listed as Federally Endangered in 1970, State Endangered in 1971. Monitoring and management activities include protecting nesting colonies from human disturbances in California, annual assessment of reproductive success in southern California populations, preparation of a recovery plan, investigation of the importance of post-breeding areas along the coast of California, Oregon and Washington, disease investigations and studies on the effects of waterfowl shooting on pelicans at the Moss Landing Wildlife Area (Monterey County).
I like to internet surf to the webcams at Catalina Island from time to time. This gives me a current perspective on the weather patterns and island activity. Today, I looked at the webcam at Two Harbors and saw this foggy apparition of Ship Rock looming in the distance.
Some days, though, it is clear enough to see the mainland and even the mountains inland. Roll the cursor over this image to see a clear day from Two Harbors.
Actually, it’s a “Fire Hawk” that belongs to the LA County Fire Department. This was on display along with a lot of fire equipment a couple of weekends ago. I snapped a pair of images to get the stereo effect.
Click on the image above for the larger, high resolution image. Or, if you prefer, you can see the 2D version by clicking here.
This towering obelisk rises 1300 feet above the canyon floor in Zion National Park. I combined two photos I took in the canyon last summer to capture this view.
This is the house I lived in when my Mom brought me home from the hospital after giving birth to me. My Dad was off in the Mediterranean fighting Germany and Italy on board a US Navy Destroyer, the USS Brooklyn. I did not meet my dad until I was eighteen months old. Mom and my grandparents held down the fort in the meantime. Grandma and Grandpa lived a short distance away and seemed to be in the house most of the time.
One of my earliest recollections in this house was when Mom took me and my older brother into the small hallway between the living room and the bedrooms. She stuffed blankets under the doors to block in any light as she sat on the floor reading to us, explaining that we were having a ‘blackout’ since Imperial Japanese submarines may have been spotted off the California coastline. This was in 1945, before the end of the War in the Pacific.
Verna and I drove by the old house while we were out doing stuff today. Click the thumbnail to see larger size.
