BIRDS | PELICANS | OCTOBER MONTHLY CHALLENGE

Pelican-palooza: Meet the Feathered Kamikazes of the S. California Coast

The California Brown Pelican roars back from brink of extinction

A California brown pelican dives for fish off the Silver Strand State Beach near San Diego with Mexico’s Coronado Islands on the horizon. (Photo: ©Craig K. Collins)

It is a warm autumn morning, I’m out for my run along the Silver Strand State Beach near my home in Coronado, CA, and the waters just beyond the breakers have turned into a war zone.

And, no, the Navy Seals who regularly train here aren’t doing military exercises.

Rather, the skies are filled with squadrons of large, feathered bombers that glide along the shoreline before wheeling then plunging beak first into the Pacific.

Downward they streak, hitting the water with a splash at speeds of up to 40 mph.

Left: A pelican coming in hot with the Point Loma Lighthouse in the background. Right: A pelican prepares to plunge into the waters off the Silver Strand. (Photos: ©Craig K. Collins)

Seconds later, they bob to the surface, lift their two-foot-long bills skyward, jiggle their expanded, fish-filled pouches, and swallow their prey.

I was here the day before and saw fewer than a half dozen pelicans flying just off this 5-mile-long spit of land that connects Coronado to its Imperial Beach border town to the…