The Pelican

By Jere Hough Meteorologist / Feature Reporter

A wild pelican, injured during Hurricane Ivan, lay dying of starvation, until a caring Fairhope man became its best friend. The Pelican

Published: Thu, September 25, 2008 - 1:33 pm

Jere Hough

A horn attached to a scooter chair sounds and a brown pelican on a nearby post takes to the air. That horn means dinner is about to be served. At first the pelican lands on a light pole, checking out who's down there pointing that big camera at it. But food and friendship prevail and the big bird circles around so it can land into the wind and close to James Blevins, who literally saved this bird's life.
Blevins explains, "We left when Ivan come, we were gone nine days, and when we come back she was out there on the end of the dock just laying there, about starved to death."
He threw dead fish out to the pelican, which the bird was able to eat.
"And it probably was three weeks before she could walk," he says.
But the bird was still not healed. "It was several months before she got where she could fly."
And once the pelican could fly, every morning it followed him out to the end of the Fairhope Pier where other fisherman shared their leftovers with it. Even with all the handouts, this bird can fend for itself...it does so for a few months every summer.
Blevins speculates, "She goes, I guess, over to that island." He's is talking about Galliard Island in Mobile Bay which has become a major pelican rookery.
Blevins says the bird was originally named Henry, but..."A guy came down there in a boat one day and says, 'That's a female.' and I said, 'How do you know?' and he said, 'I just know.' And I said, I guess we'll just call her Henrietta then."
The brown pelican became an endangered species in the 1950s and 60s due to the insecticide DDT, now banned. And because of Galliard Island, they are now more common that ever in Alabama.