The pelicans are back!!!

I'm so excited! Last year, I spotted pelicans--about six of them, pure white ones--in the mucky manmade lake at the park down the street. The lake attracts ducks and geese (and, to my delight, egrets and occasionally a heron or two), but in all the years I've lived here, I had never seen pelicans in Lake Evans. They stayed a few weeks last year, looking very regal and strange, before they took off again. And now they're back! I wonder if they've decided to bypass the Salton Sea on their migratory route--maybe they remember the catastrophic die-offs (the ones that put them back on the endangered species list). Whatever the reason, I'm thrilled to see them. I've had such a maternal feeling towards pelicans since writing The Book of Dead Birds.