Packin' my bags - headin' out

This picture tells the whole story - I'm outta here.  Off to visit family.  Well, there's a few things to accomplish yet, but the feeling is there. I've already blogged about storks and pelicans.  I believe this one is a pelican.  I still get them mixed up.  This was taken is the Caribbean.  Apparently the brown pelican is also in the Caribbean.   Let me learn something more:

Brown Pelican Pelecanus occidentalis Linnaeus, 1766

Length 106–137 cm (42–54 in), wingspan 1.83-2.5 m (6–8 ft), weight 2.75-5.5 kg (6-12 lb). Smallest pelican; distinguished by brown plumage; feeds by plunge-diving.

Five subspecies. Coastal distribution ranging from North America and Caribbean to northern South America and Galapagos. Status: Least Concern.

Fast Facts

Type:

Bird

Diet:

Carnivore

Average life span in the wild:

10 to 25 years or more

Size:

Body, 5.8 ft (1.8 m); wingspan, 10 ft (3 m)

Weight:

30 lbs (13 kg)

Size relative to a 6-ft (2-m) man

There are more than half a dozen species of pelicans, but all of them have the famous throat pouch for which the birds are best known. These large birds use their elastic pouches to catch fish—though different species use it in different ways.
Many pelicans fish by swimming in cooperative groups. They may form a line or a "U" shape and drive fish into shallow water by beating their wings on the surface. When fish congregate in the shallows, the pelicans simply scoop them up. The brown pelican, on the other hand, dives on fish (usually a type of herring called menhaden) from above and snares them in its bill. Pelicans do not store fish in their pouch, but simply use it to catch them and then tip it back to drain out water and swallow the fish immediately. The American white pelican can hold some 3 gallons (11 1/2 liters) of water in its bill. Young pelicans feed by sticking their bills into their parents' throats to retrieve food.
Pelicans are found on many of the world's coastlines and also along lakes and rivers. They are social birds and typically travel in flocks, often strung out in a line. They also breed in groups called colonies, which typically gather on islands.
In North America, the brown pelican is endangered, but populations are recovering to some extent. The sea birds were devastated by chemical pesticides, such as DDT, which damaged the eggs of pelicans and many other species.

 

A Day In Redding, CA

K and I spent the weekend visiting our son and daughter-in-law.  The weather was perfect and it  sure was good to see both of them since it had been several months.  We spent Sunday at Turtle Bay  wandering through the Chocolate exhibit and collecting on the free samples at the end of the tour.   yum!  We flew over to the the bird exhibit as our son got a little carried away wheeling his wife  around in the wheelchair.  We braved the cage where apparently all the lorikeets have a sugar  addiction just like we humans.  Hence...my bird of the week.  This feathery friend fell in love  with our son and didn't want to leave him.  We had to practically pry him off.  It was all fun  though.  This is a rainbow lorikeet, I believe.

Lories and lorikeets have specialized brush-tipped tongues for feeding on nectar and soft fruits.  They can feed from the flowers of about 5,000 species of plants and use their specialized tongues  to take the nectar. The tip of their tongues have tufts of papillae (extremely fine hairs), which  collect nectar and pollen.

Lorikeets have tapered wings and pointed tails that allow them to fly easily and display great  agility.[citation needed] They also have strong feet and legs. They tend to be hyperactive and  clownish in personality both in captivity and the wild.[citation needed]

The multi-coloured Rainbow Lorikeet was one of the species of parrots appearing in the first  edition of The Parrots of the World and also in John Gould's lithographs of the Birds of Australia.  Then and now, lories and lorikeets are described[by whom?] as some of the most beautiful species of  parrot.