White Pelicans on Elk River
Posted: Dec 27, 2007White Pelicans are a rarity on Elk River. I have never seen one north of Gulf Shores, but on Christmas morning a friend down the river called to say that a dozen White Pelicans were winging our way in the midst of a flock of cormorants. I had despaired of ever sighting pelicans on Elk River, but suddenly, there they were—resplendent in all their pristine glory, like outlandish angels flying in formation.
The pelican is a cousin of the cormorant, belonging to the order Pelecaniformes. My first memory of pelicans is from my childhood. On our family vacations in Florida, I would watch the Brown Pelicans perched on pilings near the Gulf of Mexico, eyes fixed on the water, preparing to fill their capacious beaks with fish. My mother would recite a little rhyme to my sister and me that began with the lines “A very strange bird is the pelican. Its beak can hold more than its belly can.”
Not only can the pelican hold more in his beak than he can hold in his belly, but also the American White Pelican has yet another distinction: his wing span of nine feet is the longest of any bird in Alabama, including the Great Blue Heron. His wing span rivals that of the infamous albatross.
More than just a strange and peculiar bird, the pelican has achieved mythic status. Because the pelican was thought to rend its own breast in order to feed its young when food was scarce, the pelican became a symbol for Christ and the Atonement. In the middle ages, images of the pelican wounding itself were recurrent motifs in Christian iconography.
My earliest experience with the symbolic meaning of the pelican occurred many years ago when I was a student at Athens College.. My first encounter was an oblique reference in Shakespeare's Hamlet (act iv): “To his good friend thus wide I'll ope my arms/And, like the kind, life-rendering pelican, /Repast them with my blood.”
Later that same year in my French class I read a poem by Alfred de Musset entitled Nuits . In the section Nuits de Mai (Nights of May), the Poet and the Muse engage in a dialogue. The Muse employs the image of the pelican sacrificing himself for his offspring (feeding them from his own blood) as a symbol of the poet. The Muse concludes her speech with these lines: “Poet, it is thus that great poets are made./They leave those who live once to make themselves happy/But the generous dishes served at their feasts/Are in the main like those of the pelicans./When they speak thus of false hopes/Of sadness and oblivion, love and misfortune/This isn't a reason to speed the heart/Their speeches are like sword-blades/They trace dazzling circles in the air/But there always hang some drips of blood.” (I apologize for the translation. It falls far short of the original French.)
This romantic view of the poet—that of a misunderstood outcast, isolated by his extreme sensitivity from the mainstream of humanity, suffering and in some cases sacrificing him/herself for art/truth—reached its apogee in the Bryonic hero of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (circa 1818).
As I am prone, like the romantic poets and the medieval symbolist, to read profound significance into the most casual event, I do not believe the pelicans arrived at Blue Springs by accident. I choose to believe that the White Pelicans appeared to us on Christmas Day to remind us that the true gifts of Christmas are charity, altruism, and selfless love.
Blessings on you in the new year, and may you have joy, health, and peace in 2008.
--Penne J. Laubenthal
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EllenRose says...
Penne, This piece took me to the river! I always felt blessed when the creatures on the river allowed me to see their world for a little while, and this piece gave me that same feeling. The wildlife on the river, especially in the winter, was one of the things that made me know this had to be my home. So many of my favorite memories came from your end of the river, Penne... When I think about being about being at your house, I always think about one of the ‘girl nights’, when some of us were eating out on the porch and Jenita and I were both looking out at the river. It was right before sunset, so there was a lot of light on the river. All of a sudden, something enormous rose, waved a fin or flipper, rolled and went back under. We looked at each other, and when we realized we had both really seen the same thing, we grinned the biggest grins ever! No one else had been looking at the river, so we were the only ones, although I remember you believed us – had you ever seen anything like that, or heard of it? I would so love to know what in the world it was. More than anything, it was special, because it created an immediate bond for me and Jenita, where we had only been acquaintances before.
CAFIELD says...
Has anyone else seen the White Pelicans, now that Penne has enlightened you?
carolfield says...
Penne,through your writing, you captured the surprise and joy of seeing and hardly believeing the sight of white pelicans on Elk River. Much gratitude, carol field
carolfield says...
Penne,through your writing, you captured the surprise and joy of seeing and hardly believeing the sight of white pelicans on Elk River. Much gratitude, carol field
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