American White Pelican on Lake Champlain!

We're doing a mini-posting about a maxi bird, a bird with a nine-foot wingspan and a huge yellow bill as long as some people's arms. 

photo by Clem Nilan

The bird was too far away for us to get good photos, but fellow birder Clem Nilan kayaked out and got some truly awesome shots!

Glaucopsyche

We drove to Campbell Bay in Swanton hoping to get a glimpse of an American White Pelican that's been seen in several locations around the northern end of Lake Champlain. White Pelicans breed in Canada's prairie provinces and in some isolated spots in the western U.S. They winter in the Gulf states, Mexico, and southern California. When one of them shows up in Vermont, birders from around the state travel long distances to get a look!

The big bird was close to a mile away, sharing a fallen log with gulls and cormorants. We first saw just a big round blob, much bigger than the Great Black-backed Gull next to it. If we hadn't heard that there'd been a pelican at this location, we might have thought it was a buoy or maybe an errant swan from Swan-ton. But it was a gorgeous day to be next to the lake, with sun and gentle breezes and snippets of conversation floating to us from people camping nearby. So we stayed put, chatting with some campers, watching Caspian Terns and Belted Kingfishers diving for fish, and checking on the white blob every few minutes.

Finally, after almost an hour, our patience was  rewarded! The "blob" awoke, straightened, and turned toward us, showing a gigantic yellow bill. The pelican!!

Several other birders must have had some sort of special birder radar and started pulling into the parking lot at exactly the right moment. We all watched in awe as the pelican preened a bit and, one time, spread its huge wings for us.

After ogling the rare bird for many more minutes, a group of us went to a nearby marshy area and enjoyed a small flock of Semipalmated Sandpipers. Bernie has a special affinity for shorebirds and got some great portraits of these pretty little birds.

Other birders added such camaraderie, stories, and laughter to the day! 

Pat, Matt, Donnie, Maeve, Martha

More of Bernie's shorebird pictures:

We'd never realized that the bills of Semipalmated Sandpipers are triangular at the end,

until we studied these photos!

PS about the pelican

The American White Pelican on Lake Champlain is a vagrant: a solitary bird that shows up hundreds or even thousands of miles from the usual nesting area, wintering area or migration route for its species. Vagrants are exciting because they give birders rare opportunities to see species they don't see very often - but vagrants also make many birders a little sad because the lone birds are so far out of their normal range that they almost never reconnect with any others of their species. Maeve's second novel is about a vagrant, a little bird that shows up in Vermont and changes the lives of the birders who see it. Ivy's Optics can be found on Amazon and at barnesandnoble.com. There may also be copies left at the local Phoenix Bookstores in Burlington and Essex.