There's a lovely, gentle man who comes in on morning I volunteer there (which soon will become morningS because it's mating time... and soon there will be many baby birds, squirrels, opossum, owls etc that have fallen from their nest or lost their mother).
I'll call him Bob. While all of us pitch in on whatever needs to be done, Bob loves to do the outdoor stalls, which these days hold mostly waterfowl. The 19 baby ducklings are all growing wildly, and run around when he comes to feed them and refresh their water. The other pens hold larger ducks in groups, a lone egret, a new pelican and at the very end are these fellas below.
He has befriended the big one with the yellow head, and they have a ritual where he waits for Bob to toss him a snack. The others hide behind the big one, though the middle one has personality and occasionally tries to show he can snap the air with his big bill. Take a peek:
What's particularly endearing to me is that to look at you straight on, they have to bow their bills straight down and it gives them a whole different appearance -- rather streamlined.
The last pelican we had in there had a goofy walk, which, though I caught only a snippet of it (CLICK HERE to see) and posted it cracks me up every time.
I'll call him Bob. While all of us pitch in on whatever needs to be done, Bob loves to do the outdoor stalls, which these days hold mostly waterfowl. The 19 baby ducklings are all growing wildly, and run around when he comes to feed them and refresh their water. The other pens hold larger ducks in groups, a lone egret, a new pelican and at the very end are these fellas below.
He has befriended the big one with the yellow head, and they have a ritual where he waits for Bob to toss him a snack. The others hide behind the big one, though the middle one has personality and occasionally tries to show he can snap the air with his big bill. Take a peek:
What's particularly endearing to me is that to look at you straight on, they have to bow their bills straight down and it gives them a whole different appearance -- rather streamlined.
The last pelican we had in there had a goofy walk, which, though I caught only a snippet of it (CLICK HERE to see) and posted it cracks me up every time.