play-boating pelicans

last week the whitewater play park in casper came in pretty big time. brandon was thrilled to have an opportunity to kayak big water that rarely occurs. {apparently they are working on a dam upriver so all the water is free-flowing, music to his ears!} 

we headed north in the afternoon & since play-boating is not appealing to me i decided to go for a big long run while he boated. i ran hard & fast because a big storm was coming in. when i came back brandon was just putting on the water. {why is that going for a run always feels like a long exercise session until you compare running-time to real-time? twenty minutes of running feels like so much, but 20 minutes of anything else is no big deal.}

anyhow, when i came back from my run i noticed what i thought was a white garbage bag recirculating in the surf. then i noticed this strange movement and briefly thought a child was in a plastic bag trying to extend their arm to swim. hmmm, the mind makes strange sense of what it doesn't understand. ultimately i realized it was a pelican, stuck on the wave. i sprinted to the car to get my camera & snapped a few shots.

the bird doesn't look so good and clearly couldn't get off the wave on his own. brandon is adamant that he saved the bird's life, so don't get too offended by him using his paddle to pry the pelican off the wave. i think brandon was just fed up with not being able to surf the wave due to the bird hogging it up. 

pretty crazy, huh? there was another kayaker there who is an animal biologist & he said he has never seen anything like it.