Today I witnessed an aerobatic maneuver that most local pilots would give their wings to be able to perform.
I live on a scenic estuary of the Mackay River where four adult brown pelicans share three highly desirable roosting posts. Each afternoon as sundown approaches the pelicans engage in an entertaining form of air combat for the right to roost on these posts; the loser being relegated to an ugly tree limb on a nearby scraggly cedar.
Yesterday at twilight, though there was still one roosting post available, a late arriving pelican decided that he deserved the premiere roosting spot, which was already occupied by a dozing tenant. Noting the complete lack of readiness of the incumbent, the aggressor pelican first made a stealthy flyby; then, sensing the advantage, quietly executed a slow arching turn, banked sharply, put his feet down, and landed on the snoozing bird’s head, pushing him off the premiere perch.
Startled and dazed, the dethroned pelican instinctively dove for airspeed. He then made a desperate downwind attempt at landing on the next available roosting site. Try as he may though, all he managed to accomplish was to scrape his tail feathers across the top of the splintery post, which initiated another frantic flapping of wings to gain enough airspeed to avoid a highly un-pelican like ditching in Thornhill Creek. Disaster averted and slowly gaining altitude, the embarrassed aviator re-gained control; jettisoned some excess baggage and began setting up for a second attempt.
Gracefully turning through a base leg and onto an impressive final approach, his glide slope was precisely calculated to terminate dead center of an imaginary spot on top of a twelve-inch wide landing area. Unfortunately though, however perfect this approach may have been, it was not to be; for either the wind, or the feathers, or God demonstrating his sense of humor, some unseen force conspired to foil his final touch down. In the waning seconds of the flight, it became painfully obvious to even non-pilots like myself that our pelican aviator had way too much air speed and way too little runway to even consider putting his feet down, much less actually landing.
“Wave off! Wave off!” his pelican peers seemed to be squawking as he suffered another embarrassing overshoot.
Once again, the now pooped pelican poured on the throttle, banked into a steep left turn and began setting up for a humiliating third attempt. This time, however, something was different; the downwind leg of his landing pattern was much longer than normal. This time he had significantly more airspeed, and a lot more altitude. As he slowly exited his base leg and turned onto his final approach, he was, in my opinion, way too high, but--from my limited knowledge of pelican behavior--he did not appear to be overly concerned. On he came in his final approach, increasing in airspeed and aiming at a point that to me looked as if he would be at least two or three hundred feet short of any credible landing spot. On he came, faster and faster, his beady little pelican eyes focused on a single imaginary point that was surrounded by nothing but a whole bunch of ice cold water. Still, on he came!
Gaining speed as he dove, he approached the chilly waters of Thornhill Creek at an alarmingly steep angle until, just before impact; he suddenly pulled up and leveled off about one foot above the small waves that were rippling across the creek. He was heading directly up-wind straight for the roosting post which loomed 12 feet high in front of him. To me, he looked way too low and was traveling at a rate of speed more consistent with approaching the checkered flag at Indy than landing on a tiny dock post in coastal Georgia.
On he came though, losing not a second of speed, coasting effortlessly on the thin silicon like layer of atmosphere that exists between air and water.
On he came, seemingly oblivious to his impending collision with the dock post directly in his path. On he came, until he was about 50 feet from impact. Then suddenly, he slammed his tail feathers into reverse, pointed his beak skyward, gave one powerful flap of his wings and began what can only be called a picture perfect zoom climb; trading airspeed for altitude, resulting in a steeply arching upward swoop that stalled out with zero airspeed just about six inches above the roosting post. Whereupon the pelican simply put his feet down on the top of the post, carefully folded his wings, adjusted his tail feathers, and sat down.
Then, once all remaining pelican flight switches were safely off, he turned his head my way; gave me one of those smug, “OK flyboy, let’s see you do that” glances, yawned once and promptly went to sleep.
