Travel and Nature -kangaroo island-

We had to travel quite a bit to take these pictures. Click here to see all our Kangaroo Island Pictures

First a 15-hour never-ending non-stop flight from Los Angeles to Melbourne, Australia. Next, a 1-hour flight to beautiful Adelaide in Southern Australia. And then a 2 hour drive to Cape Jervis, a 45-minute ferry trip to Pennashaw and about 2 more hours to get us

to Kingscote. Once you are there, the wharf is not hard to find. You can ask anybody, or if it is anytime after 3 PM, you can follow

the direction of the pelican’s flight.

Every evening at 5 sharp, rain or shine, summer or winter, tourists or not, the feeding ritual is carried on. This show is never dark and the avian participants arrive early. We have walked to the wharf that same morning, and except for a few sea gulls, no birds were around. By 5 PM there were plenty of pelicans, all waiting for the show to start. John, also known as "the pelican man" arrived in his truck, dressed appropriately to deal with such crowd and carrying a heavy bucket full of fish. There were around 20 tourists who had arrived by bus and a few of us walked from the nearby Ozone hotel.

The talk preceding the feeding started. John shared quite a bit of information about these pelicans that are considerably larger than US pelicans. The yellow ring around their eyes gives them a cartoon-like appearance. Their feathers are pure white and deep black; they are very beautiful. We learned that they fly quite far, and that they do not dive to fish. We learned about breeding and migration. All was very new and interesting for us, but the pelicans had probably heard the same speech for years, and in anticipation of the end of the speech (and the beginning of the feeding) they started slightly shaking their wings. At that point they reminded me of a crowd waiting for a rock concert to start, and how audiences become uneasy after they have waited quite some time for their favorite band to show on stage and start playing.

Finally the feeding started. John continued educating us as the pelicans followed his movements with synchronized attention. When all the food was gone, they started to go as well. John reminded the crowd that a small donation was accepted. Food has to be paid for, and he delivers it even when no tourists show up.

By night, he also conducts the “little penguin” tours. We were joined by just one more couple that night, but John showed us each and every of the creatures of the well-kept aquarium at the Marine Centre. Then he walked us through platforms and with a red light (frequency that does not disturb the penguins) showed us a few of them nesting along the coast. He told us that he wanted to build elevated platforms, so people can watch the penguins from above and disturb them less. He also explained that this portion of beach where the penguins nest has top real estate value, and builders and politicians had made plans more than once to build condos on that spot. He is trying to protect the tiny penguins that cannot talk for themselves. I do not think that he has much help, and he counts on income from the tours to build the new platforms.

We were impressed by his effort. It was near 10 PM, and he was probably tired, but it did not show. He feeds the pelicans and conducts the penguin tours every day of the year except Christmas day. His dedication and effort moved us. We wanted to help but did not know how. Then we decided to tell this story and help financially through the sale of pictures taken that day.

These are original pictures taken by us. We did not take picture of the penguins as it was very dark and flashes would have disturbed them. For each picture that you buy we will set aside part of the sales price for the construction of these platforms.

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