Lord Nelson and a Valentine Love Story

 

Like many of our festivals, Valentine’s Day has a murky beginning.  One of my favorite theories about the Feast Day of St. Valentine is that February 14th was considered the day when birds chose their mates for the year.  This is in keeping with my Valentin’s Day love story.

            My husband and I enjoy playing golf.  We usually play at Los Lagos Golf Club in Edinburg.  As you might guess, with a name like Los Lagos, there is plenty of water.  It is the water that really brightens our day.  If you have water, you have waterfowl and that means a good home for Lord Nelson. 

I am in love with Lord Nelson, a white pelican, who lives in one or another of the ponds that dot the golf course.  I call him Lord Nelson (the British Vice-Admiral who lost his arm in the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife) because the pelican, like his namesake, has only one wing.  I don’t know if my pelican also carries the real Lord Nelson’s additional characteristics of only one eye and constant womanizing (does my pelican have his own Lady Hamilton?), but he is a handsome bird.

He first came to our attention almost eight years ago.  The ponds of Los Lagos are filled with white pelicans during the migrations.  They form fluffy pillows of white as they swim together.  They form a graceful circle and then, in unison, dip their enormous beaks into the water to scoop up fish that are essentially trapped in a sea of open mouths.  Pelicans are equally beautiful in the air and only become awkward when they waddle across the land.  It is on the land, slow, heavy and unable to maneuver, that pelicans are vulnerable. I can only assume that it was in one of these landlocked moments that Lord Nelson had an encounter with a predator.  He escaped, but with a badly damaged wing.

The first day we noticed him, he was dragging his wing in the water.  What is worse, as frequently happens in the animal kingdom, he was being abandoned by his fellow birds.  So here was a beautiful pelican, disabled, hunting on his own, unable to fly.  It did not look good. Then, he disappeared.

We did not see the pelican for several weeks, then, as the other birds began leaving, we spotted him.  The damaged part of his wing had been removed.  Whether by nature or by human intervention, the lower part of the wing had disappeared.  The “how” may be a mystery, but the “what” was obvious. There was the bird with the upper part of the wing intact, though carried at an elevated, slightly skewed angle. He could not fly, but he could swim and fish.

It was at this second sighting that I started calling him Lord Nelson.  We looked for him every week and seeing him was personally joyful.  Weeks passed, so did months and he was always there.  When we were away for any period, we looked for him as a marker of permanence. He became our “welcome home.”

There have been scares.  He disappeared from his usual pond once and we did not see him for the longest time. We were sure time and circumstances had caught up with Lord Nelson. Then he showed up at another pond on the golf course.  Clearly, he had made the dangerous trip overland for some good reason which he did not share with us.  He now shares the ponds with the pelicans who show up in droves during spring and fall, though he still tends to stay a bit removed, either by his choice or theirs. 

I am in love with Lord Nelson.  I love what he represents.  He is dignified, defiant, and—against all odds—thriving.  He refuses to give in to disability, or the fortunes of war.  In the words of William Ernest Henley, his head is bloody but unbowed. A part of love is admiration, and I admire Lord Nelson.

Share a little love and keep the faith.   

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