I thought they were always here, but they aren’t, the white pelicans. I haven’t seen them for a while now, so I went out this evening to paddle around the edge of Fern Ridge and look. I’ve only seen gray pelicans at the coast, gliding just over the crest of waves.
To start, I drop my paddleboard in the mud-water ditch after parking on the shoulder of the highway just across from a huge cross in memory of someone who died here. It’s made from 4 x 4 beams and looks to be 8 feet tall.
Traffic whizzes by too close and fast. I paddle away in the lower than normal water. The water is brown.
No birds.
The first thing I see is a dark green turtle sunning on a log.
Next up are tree swallows. Then a great blue heron.
The cattails look like ghosts, almost as white as the moon.
And then, pelicans! Six of them joined in a loose knit group pattern that slowly changed shapes as they sailed by. They look too big to be in the sky yet totally natural being in the sky.
I paddle out toward the wider reservoir and find an edge to hang out and watch the tree swallows either playing or fighting about where they would land on a big snag. A crow sits above them, jet black against the blue sky.
I look beyond, into the distant hills and notice sections of clearcuts, big chunks of trees gone. The geese fly over this on their way to the water.
In the dried reeds, a marsh wren sings. I had to use the bird app to know. There are more birds here than I can name. I see big ones, dark ones, light ones, little ones poking around at the edges of the water. They all seem special and noteworthy and important.
Heading back, one very large bird lifts off the surface of the water, wet and dark, flapping its huge wingspan. I think it’s an eagle, a juvenile bald eagle, that’s my best guess. It was not a duck or a goose.
At some point I get a message from someone and I’m reminded of sincerity, the quality. Then I think wow, this experience, this place is sincere. The water is sincere. The mud is sincere. The singing marsh wren is sincere. So are the pelicans. Everything is.
It’s not fake out here. It’s what feels the most real.
The red-winged blackbirds sing me out.
I get out on the muddy bank and lift everything up the steep edge and walk over gravel with blackberry runners reaching out, little broken bits of plastic, a chunk of styrofoam held by a shrub. The cars race by. The sun is setting, the moon is getting brighter.
