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This fellow is an adult male Pelican. He crashed into the sagebrush on his way to the nesting ground. What happens to these guys is they leave the California coast and head up over the Sierra mountains and sometimes they hit headwinds or they just don't have enough fuel to make it all the way to the nesting grounds so they just crash from fatigue and don't have the energy to get airbourne again. If we don't find them in time they end up as cayote food. But we got this guy now so after a couple weeks of rest and 40-50 cans of mackeral he will be all re-fueled up and ready to join his buddies at the nesting ground. Just a side note - that fin on his beak, no one is quite sure what it is for, the adult males grow them during mating season and then it drops off later in the year. It might be to impress the babes or it could be some kind of air foil to deflect the air away from the eyes no one know for sure.
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