ISLAND OBSERVER
'Pelican party' at Padre
TONY AMOS

Can I put the scene into words (I didn't have my camera with me)? It was Saturday evening and the sun was setting. I was waiting for my takeout order at Little Joe's, sitting outside on their pleasant patio. The rain had stopped and beads of water covered the tables and chairs, but I found a dry spot to sit. The air was still, the town was quiet for a Saturday night, and the temperature so perfect I was unaware of it.

Meteorologists call the type of sky that evening "chaotic": Clouds of different shapes and types could be seen at several levels. The sky behind the clouds was a deep clear blue, but the bases of the clouds themselves were all at once orange, yellow, white, silver and gold. A layer of puffy grey clouds advanced in one direction, while high above those, wispy yellow cirrus tails were changing colors by the minute.

I wanted to somehow elevate myself up there to take a close up look at each brilliantly illuminated cloud. And then the mood changed suddenly; my phone rang, telling me the third broken-wing bird of the day was at I. B. Magee Jr. Beach Park. I looked up at the sky, and it was suddenly grey. I got up and discovered my dry spot had not really been dry.

Back again This is one of many returning piping plovers that spend the winter in Port Aransas.

After taking the young laughing gull to the ARK and supper to the house, I noticed the sunset had undergone a resurgence. Impressive crepuscular rays fanned out on the eastern horizon, shadows of clouds out of sight below the horizon, and I thought of Thelonius

Monk.

*******

Some people from Padre Isles had what could be described as a "pelican party" on Monday evening. I got calls about a young pelican with a hurt wing while driving back from LaBonte Park with a hummingbird on board. It is always difficult to capture pelicans, even those that cannot fly: If they go into the water and if they get the idea that you are trying to get them (they soon understand what the net is for), it may not be possible to make the catch.

As I had already circumnavigated the bay and was approaching the ferry with visions of supper dancing in my head, I needed to make sure there was a reasonable chance of catching the pelican. I need not have worried. The neighbors along the canal-side houses of Padre Isles were calling across the water to other neighbors to keep track of the big bird's location. Telephone numbers were relayed to me as I delivered the hummer to the ARK and started out toward Padre Island. The pelican had managed to get up on a boat lift and should be easy to catch. Except when I got to the latest address, the bird had got in the water and was about five houses downstream. But in the fading light I saw a remarkable sight. A man was in a kayak trying to corral the now fully-alerted bird. Two others were in the water swimming, and the three of them managed to herd the bird over to where I was waiting to scoop him up. It was not quite over.

I somehow had to negotiate one of those fences that are designed to stop people from going from one yard to the next by extending out over the water. They are effective enough in stopping an unencumbered intruder and even more so with one carrying a reluctant pelican under one arm. We made it around the obstacle, but the most amazing thing that night was the persistence of the people who were determined not to let the pelican get away. I suspect that some new friends were made along Camino Del Plata and Bullion streets that night.

******* I was going to tell you about more messages in the sand this week, but here it is as usual, far too close to deadline for me to do the necessary research. So I'll finish up with some news on the piping plover front.

I have now seen nearly 100 piping plovers that are uniquely identifiable by the color bands they wear on their legs. These tiny shorebirds spend most of the year on Texas Gulf beaches and back-island flats after breeding up north in Canada, the Great Plains, or the Eastern Seaboard. Most return to the same place on the beach within a tenth of a mile, and I document their sojourns here with notes and photographs. I thought I was losing my photographing touch because the plover pictures were getting fuzzy. So I

broke out my ancient 600mm manual lens and discovered that it was not me, but Nikon that was getting shaky. Here is the latest picture of "Single Blue Left", one of the least adorned of the Mustang Island Regulars. I've seen this bird 48 times since August 2003. This bird sticks to within 100 yards of the same spot on the beach every year! I will be talking about "The Persistent Plovers of Port Aransas" this Friday at the Rockport Hummer Festival and on Saturday evening will give the keynote address.

Tony Amos is a research fellow at The University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas.