Stray Pelican

Crazy wild animal loose at work today! Actually, it was a super cute pelican. Some hippies in a big bus came into the office around 10 or so this morning. They said that there was a giant pelican swimming in the water behind their site. While I was attempting to visualize the water that was supposedly behind their site, co-worker Jon spit out, "oh yes, sometimes when they get tired they swim upstream to get fresh water to drink." Sounded good to me, although I am still unaware if that has any truth to it. The hippies left a few hours later, I wouldn't have been surprised if they had taken the pelican with them. I tried to avoid going out to check out the bird, so I managed to stay busy most of the day. By 2:30, I had to check to see if the pelican was still there. If it was just thirsty, I would have thought it may have moved on by then. That is what I was hoping, I hate seeing injured, helpless animals. I was not so lucky today.

It was not hanging out in the water anymore, just balled up on the shore. I couldn't and wouldn't get any closer to it, although I was curious to see if I could make it move. Its eyes followed me the whole time, but the rest of its body didn't move at all.

Looks like it is sitting on a nest, although the website that I link at the beginning shows a picture of their nesting grounds, and it doesn't look like this. The first website, and another that I read stated that they only come up this far in Oregon (and can go as far north as BC) after they nest and are all done with the mateing stuff.
So that is probably not it either, an injury is seeming more and more likely.

I checked on it again before I left to go home for the day. It was still in the same place, but it had turned around so it was facing east instead of west.

I will have to check on it again tomorrow. I hope nothing gets to it in the night.