R.I.P Brown Pelican

Yesterday I showed a picture of a brown pelican, alive and kicking. This morning, we found him dead on deck, on top of the bridge. I wonder why. I could be for several reasons, a healthy pelican can withstand 30 knot winds easily, so no reason to rest on a vessel. It could be that he was old or not healthy and that he died peacefully on our deck. Flying through our exhaust fumes (400 degrees centigrade) could also be a cause. Not many birds can handle this, even if the ancestors of this particular bird go back 30 million years. I took it on the aft deck, chopped his head and feet off (for scientific purposes of course) with an firemans's axe and took this picture.

See this Large and see for yourself how skinny the neck of the bird is.