A contrary bird is the pelican!

July 31, 2018 a good book the birds and the trees

Having grown up near the California coast, I am most familiar with our seafaring brown pelicans, so it’s always a special thrill to see the white pelicans who are only seasonal visitors. I was lucky enough to espy this fellow paddling on Oakland’s Lake Merritt and to snap a few photos before he swam gracefully away. (The pattern in the water is the reflection of the buildings of downtown Oakland, distorted by the pelican’s ripples.)

Birdie bullies!

I learned from Craig that white pelicans sometimes fish cooperatively, herding their prey into shallow water so it can be more easily seized. Following up on that (thanks, Google!), I discovered that they are also known for ganging up on other birds to rob them of their catch, a practice called kleptoparasitism.

The contrast between the birds’ elegant appearance and their bullying behavior reminds me of Philip Pullman’s tualapi (in The Amber Spyglass). He describes them as enormous, graceful white birds who swim on the sea like so many sailboats, only to emerge and wreak destruction and desecration on the local village. Pullman compares the tualapi to swans, but it sounds to me like they have more in common with those mean white pelicans.

Literary pelicans

Pelicans also make me think of Laurie R. King’s novel Justice Hall, the sixth in her series about an aging Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell, his much younger and equally clever wife. This book centers around a noble family whose crest features a pelican piercing her breast in order to feed her own blood — or possibly even her own heart — to her starving chicks. This gruesome image derives from medieval Christian legendry, where the pelican is a symbol of duty and sacrifice, which are key themes in this mystery novel. Here’s how King explains it:

Holmes and I went to the end of the corridor and there found the most ornate set of servants’ stairs I’d ever seen… Pelicans had alighted here, too, I saw, carved atop the newel posts, painted into the walls, even incorporated into the plaster-work ceiling. I stopped to study the unlikely, ungainly, big-beaked creature brooding over the newel post when it occurred to me that the nearly amorphous granite shapes guarding the main gates had originally been pelicans, as well. My mind suddenly made the connection.
“Sacrifice,” I said aloud, “Of course!”
“Sorry?” Holmes asked.
“The pelican. It’s an odd choice as the heraldic beast of a great house. I mean, they’re positively comical except when they’re actually in the air. But the pelican is a symbol of ultimate self-sacrifice, piercing its breast to feed its young. Zoologically inaccurate, of course, but it goes very deep in Christian mythology. The symbol was applied to the Christ and later used in medieval alchemy. See — you can even make out the painted blood on this one.”
Holmes stopped to peer with me at the red stream flowing down the breast beside the carved beak…

This image of the pelican’s sacrifice has stayed with me, even though I first read this book many years ago.

ASIDE: Laurie R. King earned a master’s degree in theology from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, and she often weaves theological elements into her plot lines. Her books are intricate and erudite and — with few exceptions — extremely satisfying. I can’t wait to listen to her latest Russell/Holmes novel, Island of the Mad!

Finally — and inevitably, I suppose — pelicans remind me of Dixon Lanier Merritt’s famous limerick, which I learned from my dad a long time ago:

A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican,
He can take in his beak
Enough food for a week
But I’m damned if I see how the helican! (1910)

Here’s a toast to the white pelican, a study in contrasts,
whom we do best to admire from a distance and not seek to emulate!

Connections

The world from two wheels

Marginalia as interpretation and liberation
7 thoughts on “A contrary bird is the pelican!”
  1. Liz Rastrick

    Philip Pullman – always a Hero.
    Excellent photo as well, Jenny!

    • JM

      Thanks, Liz! I agree with you about Philip Pullman. Looking forward to volume 2 in his new trilogy. Have you read the first?

      • Liz Rastrick

        I have, Jenny! And gave it to my son as well, who is a huge fan of Mr. Pullman. I’ve read just about everything he has ever written, although not ‘The good man Jesus the scoundrel Christ”. I’m saving that one for my old age!

  2. Margarita

    Jenny, what a wonderful photograph! I will check the writers you mention today! thanks!

    • JM

      Thank you, Peggy! I hope you enjoy these books as much as I do.

  3. Judith Ann

    Whoa–a flash from the past! My dad used to recite that limerick whenever we spotted pelicans on family trips to Atlantic Coast shores.
    And here, belatedly, are some comments I neglected to make in a timely way about a couple of previous posts: 1) I loved the JM/JM rendition of the biking to work round, and am awed by the singer’s recording capabilities as well as her vocal ability.
    2) In your Blackberry post, the mention of Zout as a non pareil method of dealing with difficult clothing stains reminded me that my own supply is almost out. When I was a kid, my dad used to say that everything I ate looked well on me. To my dismay that talent stays with me to this day, so a good stain remover is an essential staple in my household. Although the folks at my neighborhood Walgreens had never heard of it, when I cited the authority of the Zout website, they obliged me with an intra-company order, thereby preserving my presentability for the foreseeable future. Perseverance furthers. Thank you Jenny.

    • JM

      Hi, JA—
      I’d never heard of Zout either, but Craig told me about it when I was amazed to see that he’d managed to get a blackberry stain out of one of his good shirts. They don’t sell it everywhere…

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