This documentary closes with a pelican joke which I'll open my review with. A pelican walks into a bar and the bartender says "So, why the long face?"
Enough of the levity, as this film opens with actual footage of a pelican, which seemingly cannot fly, causing traffic havoc on the Golden Gate Bridge, in San Francisco. She's "captured' and placed in a police car and eventually brought to a bird rehabilitation center, where they'll see if they can nurse this pelican, named Gigi by the filmmaker, back to health for eventual release back into her natural habitat.
Thus part of the movie will focus of Gigi's recovery, but there are numerous other elements to the film. Focusing mainly on the California brown pelican, they'll be many pelican factoids presented to the viewer. We'll visit their breeding grounds, on the Channel Islands, (off the southern California coast), and see how difficult it is for pelican chicks to survive early on (50% don't make it), and how the last born into the nest face the longest odds.
They'll also be information presented on how to tell the age of a pelican by it's coloring, we'll see some of their mating rituals, and how they learn to fly and eventually catch fish for their survival. It was interesting to see how the California brown pelican was almost brought to extinction by the use of chemical pesticides being dumped into the water, in the 1960's and 70's, but how now that DDT and other chemicals have been banned the birds are making a recovery. There's also very brief clips of the horrific damage done to pelicans due to the 2010 Chevron Gulf oil spill.
All in all, I thought this documentary, directed and narrated by Judy Irving (The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill) was an informative and interesting movie about pelicans, who have been on this Earth for some 30 million years and are an important part of our environment.
