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Boudicca's avatar

Ignore the naysayers who want to control what you say. Play whatever clips you want. This is YOUR Substack.

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Jon Swenson's avatar

That clip was informative. I have a new appreciation for pelicans.

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Oliver Closov's avatar

A wonderful bird, is the pelican.

His mouth will hold more than his belican.

He eats enough fish to cover a large dish,

but I'm damned if I know how the helican.

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RunningLogic's avatar

🤣😂 That was awesome! 😁

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Paula's avatar

The original Ogden Nash version:

A wonderful bird is the pelican

His beak can hold more than his belican

He can hold in his beak enough food for week

But I’m dam’ed if I know how the helican

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Big E's avatar

Ogden Nash? Maybe not, but always great! https://quoteinvestigator.com/2020/06/20/pelican/

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Oliver Closov's avatar

Don't know. I remember it from a high school limerick book a long time ago.

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Andrea Leshok's avatar

Was researching limericks with my daughter for school recently and came across this one too!

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CAM's avatar

Chickens are another bird that will "educate" folks who think they are sweet and just peck at grain and bugs. They will tear apart mice, voles, snakes, and any other small critter (including baby birds) that can't outrun them.

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Jon Swenson's avatar

Birds are descendants of dinosaurs.

A flight of pelicans also looks like a flight of pterodactyls.

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“¡Essential!”??? Cargo Pilot's avatar

Pretty sure they're descendants of...birds.

But, it's just a Thoery.

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WP William's avatar

climate change changed the flying dinos into partly feathered occasionally flying...o i dunno a transdino transbird

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All That Jazz's avatar

I just saw a regular bird kill a newly hatched chick and fly off with it. It's just a vicious cycle! "For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together..." Rom. 8:22

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RJ Rambler's avatar

Cannibals!

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Canny Granny's avatar

I just thought they ate fish. Shows how much I don’t know about pelicans and that I don’t live near the ocean.

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EMME's avatar

I thought they delivered BABIES‼️ 😬

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Mark Alexander's avatar

You're thinking of storks. Get your ornithology straight!

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SheThinksLiberty's avatar

"Get your ornithology straight!" 𝑯𝒊𝒍𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒖𝒔! 😂😂😂

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RunningLogic's avatar

Pelicans have a natural pouch to carry the baby in though, would’ve been a better choice 😆 Or then again considering that video, maybe the baby wouldn’t end up at its intended destination 😳🤔😛

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RJ Rambler's avatar

😆🤨👆

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WP William's avatar

a more natural way for Colorado Women's "Health Care" providers to dispose of the unwanted next generation; truly a Libertarian bird; that should be their mascot in this forsaken state

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WP William's avatar

i have to say that's my expression of late in CO; maybe Greenland is better; the Danish nazi doctors there have been surreptitiously sterilizing Inuit women for years though but at least they nip it in the "bud" so to speak. Double Frown!!

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Nikki (Gayle) Nicholson's avatar

I went right there with her, anyone a great laugh.

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Nikki (Gayle) Nicholson's avatar

lol good one :-)

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RJ Rambler's avatar

🤣🤣🤣🤣 Came four times to my house... Or was that ...🤔

😆

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Canny Granny's avatar

I said that incorrectly. I thought they just ate fish; even better, they only eat fish.

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Copernicus's avatar

Actually, they eat only fish.

😆

To say they only eat fish suggests that they only eat them, but don’t play with them, or wear them for clothing, and whatnot.

Grammar can be such fun! 🤩

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OnTheJump's avatar

I suppose they COULD do all the above - but the order is important, gotta eat 'em last. Adds new meaning to " don't play with your food " , I suppose.

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Canny Granny's avatar

So easy to put word in the wrong places in sentences.

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Canny Granny's avatar

Which this and the above are not! Lol

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Canny Granny's avatar

They eat not only fish!

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JW's avatar

We lived on the coast and I thought they only ate fish too!

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WP William's avatar

we have has pelicans in mountains of Colorado for couple decades at least now; the climate must be changing, and/or the coastal peoples invading (migrating) and bringing their birds with them??

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Florida Grown's avatar

It was informative. We only get to see these white pelicans in Florida during winter months. They're huge compared to our year round brown pelicans. Also , I’ve never seen the white pelicans feed. Just seen them floating in the ICW and rivers, or hanging out on docks in marinas. I have a whole new respect for them, or maybe a new fear!

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Susan Harman's avatar

I have to agree with Boudicca. This is your space. I always appreciate your perspective!! And I thought pelicans only ate fish. So I learned something!! I won’t raise pelicans and parakeets together!!! I hate watching whales eat baby seals because they torment the little things. So I change the channel!! 🫣 But really…it is reality. We 21st century Americans are too far removed from plucking the chicken before we eat the meat.

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Donna in MO's avatar

Yes, my kids grew up around the time of the Lion King movie coming out, and they were obsessed, watched it so many times they could recite most of the lines on cue. We had a cat named Simba. They were lions for Halloween. They played 'Lion King' with their friends. So turned on a National Geographic (or something) show about the life of lions. Turns out when the old 'lion king' of a pride crawls off to die, a new alpha male comes into the pride, and his first order of business is to kill the cubs of the former king. It was shocking and sad to watch these cute little cubs get killed while the moms just sat and watched. Kind of traumatizing for the kids, heck, it was for ME, but we just told them, well that is the 'circle of life' and that is how God made humans different from the animals, in that we have a conscience. Although sometimes I wonder about that these days given the behavior of some of the people out there.

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“¡Essential!”??? Cargo Pilot's avatar

I'd propose that conscience has little to do with civilized behavior (ref. every criminal who didn't care).

Civilized behavior only comes from God's Law... the Bible.

Being held accountable for "Criminal" actions is what matters.

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WP William's avatar

learn early and young that crime does NOT pay and one may become wise. If this lesson is skipped ones' son becomes Hunter Biden

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INGRID C DURDEN's avatar

I am sure the prey is not happy. But most of us eat meat on an almost daily basis, and all these animals get killed too. Not a lover of plucking birds, but someone has to do it

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Karkar's avatar

My parents have a picture of me as a child being chased by a headless chicken on processing day. To this day - I can’t stand the smell of warm dead chicken and plucking. But I do still eat chicken...

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Canny Granny's avatar

I was across the street waiting for the bus one morning 50 something years ago when the neighbor decided she was having fried chicken for lunch. I reckon that’s why she chopped off the chicken’s head. I actually got to see a chicken running around with its head chopped off.

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Susan Harman's avatar

My aunt lived out in the country and the neighbor needed a chicken for dinner. I lived in the city so this was all new to me. I also watched the chicken running around with its head chopped off!! I wonder when the loonies will ban THAT expression like they did with “killed two birds with one stone?” 😂

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Canny Granny's avatar

I didn’t know that was banned. Lol

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Susan Harman's avatar

I live in Biden land (although not for long!!) so that’s what I heard!!

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INGRID C DURDEN's avatar

never saw it myself, but dad did when his younger bro lost hold of the headless chicken

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Canny Granny's avatar

I certainly never forget it. 😂

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Gabriella's avatar

Okay…I have to ask? What the heck do these lines mean???

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SHARON MAHOE's avatar

Yes agree, I can’t watch that natural food lineup either….lions and jackals and all that, but baby seals no

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Jacquie's avatar

Agreed! 👏 I thought it was hilarious! Such is the animal kingdom.

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Gigi Gummerson's avatar

When did survival of the fittest become a faux pas? Isn’t that what happens in the world?

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INGRID C DURDEN's avatar

I thought it was the rule of the world. That is how nature works! The weak die and or get eaten. The strong live on. I think part of what is going on in the world, is due to the fact that humans try to let everyone survive, so the weak grow up to be weak adults etc. Not voting for abortion or euthanasia, but for raising children to stand their own in an ever more violent world

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Copernicus's avatar

Humans have written in their souls God’s compassion for the weak, particularly weak humans. You are absolutely correct that in the animal world, the weaker animals end up as prey for others. But humans do not behave this way, except when following our baser natures. This difference marks but one of the many distinctions between humankind and animal kind. We are not simply higher evolved animals, but beings created with the imprint of the Divine Creator. ❤️

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Maggie Think of Me's avatar

God breathed life into man... not so with animals. He gave them life, but His breath is in us. Genesis 2:7

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Anja's avatar

Wonderfully said, Copernicus. Thank you😊🌺

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Lisa Ca's avatar

I beg to disagree here. God explicitly states in his word that we are to have dominion (rule over) animals and tend to the earth.

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Copernicus's avatar

I'm not sure that I or anyone else here has said anything that disagrees with that.

Humans don't prey on weaker humans.

But yes, humans do domesticate certain animals, and we eat animals. If that's what you mean. I think most of us would agree about that.

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Leo's avatar

Yes. Through time, religion has served to civilize, to help people move beyond the law of the Jungle.

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Copernicus's avatar

God's laws, written on the hearts of people, moves us beyond our basest instincts and desires. Indeed. God's laws, as written in the Bible.

Other religions often oppress the weak, and most ultimately so by requiring a person to work very hard to achieve certain things in order to become right with God. How can a weak person possibly fulfill all the pillars of Islam, for instance? Or how can a weak person achieve perfect oneness with the universe, in Hinduism or Buddhism (forgive me if I am oversimplifying their beliefs)? Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism believe that someone who is, for example, born lame, is born that way as a consequence of ill behavior in a prior life, or, perhaps parental ill behavior. How then is it right to compassionately attempt to alleviate such suffering, if the suffering must be endured to make amends for wrongs done in a prior life?

Many Muslims believe that Allah is capricious and does what he wills as and when he wills. So, if someone is suffering, it must be the will of God, so why interfere. Now, giving to the poor is one of the pillars, but there is this contradiction.

Only Christianity has a God who is so full of compassion for us weak humans that HE came to US rather than making US come to HIM. He is the only God who promises that HE will help us to keep his laws, so we are not left to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.

So, it is not simply religion, but a certain kind of religion that civilizes mankind.

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Leo's avatar

I have no interest in ranking religions. My point is the Law of the Jungle is only a starting point, not a desirable goal.

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RJ Rambler's avatar

But... There is judgement that be made regarding what is really true. You can imagine that you are disregarding or not judging but in so doing you do make choices in judgement which rule your own life.

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Leo's avatar

Yes, of course. But that wasn't the point...

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WP William's avatar

Defend the weak and resist Evil; the Thieves, destroyers, inducers of chaos: seems like a call for strength and action to me; too much apathy, passivity and meekness facilitates injustice and rewards bullies. Be STRONG and LIVE ON!

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“¡Essential!”??? Cargo Pilot's avatar

It's not survival of the fittest... that would imply that all the seals died long ago.

Proves that evolution is imagination run wild.

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WP William's avatar

i prefer the phrase; Survival of the Fattest that way no one is fat-shamed by fitness freaks

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Celayne Jones's avatar

Pelicans gotta eat, too.

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Connie Lemmincakes's avatar

The circle of life. Doubt you could convince a pelican to become a vegan.

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Celayne Jones's avatar

If you did, it would die of starvation

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RJ Rambler's avatar

🙋‍♀️

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Jacquie's avatar

Yep! Those birds are huge. Gotta fill that tummy.

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Celayne Jones's avatar

And not with highly processed fake meat, either!

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Jacquie's avatar

😂 😂 😂 All natural!

Thanks for the laugh!

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Based Florida Man's avatar

Free range, cage free!

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WP William's avatar

Eating, digesting, defecating, mating: nature is actually quite disgusting; can't we just have videos of blossoms and flowers instead?

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Melanie Eccles's avatar

Agreed. It was hard to watch for me but it is nature and that's how it works. I don't like watching wolves chasing and killing little bunnies either but that is the way of nature. It's all about surviving long enough to propagate the species. It's all part of the creation plan, is it not?

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Susan Seas's avatar

I love animals, but I also know animals eat animals. It’s the circle of life! I was not offended and after a moment of Oh No! I laughed 😂

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Micah James's avatar

I can't believe anybody actually complained about it!?!

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daiva's avatar

Some thin-skinned touchy soul will decide to be offended anyhow, irrespective of how hard you try to accommodate their sensibilities 🤷 Bcuz as the Good Doctor Theodore Dalrymple helpfully instructs us,

🗨 the composition of human beings is 60 percent water and 40 percent eggshell.

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Patrice's avatar

That clip inspired me to consider getting a pelican, solely for the purpose of pigeon pest control.

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Stephanie's avatar

Damn right! Isn’t the 1st Amendment beautiful? This is YOUR stack and you have one of the best IMO! Great job!

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Name Redacted's avatar

I agree. I hope the snack was a pidgeon. I think it was. I saw other pidgeons walking around in the grass and they were the smallest bird. No other bird seemed alarmed, so....nature.

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CMCM's avatar

I was once in Kenya and on a safari. I watched and took photos of a lion stalking a huge crowd of wildebeest and it was fascinating to watch. He picked his target and took it down while all the other wildebeest just stood there as if they didn't notice what was going on.

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Nicola's avatar

Pelicans gotta eat too.

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WP William's avatar

can pelicans get bird flu by eating an infected bird? Or can they get bat flu from a Chinese wet market?

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S.P.H.'s avatar

Liked by SPH :-)

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Garden Lover's avatar

I agree. When I saw still of the clip, I sensed this was not something I was going to want to watch, so I didn’t. Animals have to eat, too, but I don’t necessarily need to watch it. 🤪

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