A wonderful bird is the pelican,

His bill will hold more than his belican.

He can take in his beak

Food enough for a week,

But I’m damned if I see how the helican.

When I was a little girl and I would walk near the Windsor Lake with Granny and Papa, we would look at all the pelicans out on the water. Papa would always tell me this poem. And of course I would always giggle when he would say 'helican.' I wrote Papa an email a week or so ago telling him I told Blaise this poem, he responded that it was not his poem, and that his Grandfather told it to him. As a matter of fact the poem is by Dixon Lanier Merritt. But in order to follow the now family tradition of grandfathers telling this to their grandchildren once I am a grandfather I will too tell this poem to my grandchildren.





Those pelicans at Windsor Lake have nothing on the Australian Pelican. This is one of the largest birds I have ever seen. Their beak alone is about three feet long, so I think that undoubtedly they would be able to hold more than their belican.

Unfortunately I was unable to crawl into this fence with the pelicans to show you the scale, but if I were to stand next to them they would be at least as half as tall as I am. Very large creatures with the ability to hold a very large amount of food in their flexible beaks.