You can learn a lot about the local birds by watching this raft in the Cove. Someone left it here a few years back, maybe as a spot to swim to, maybe as a dock, but whatever the original idea, it belongs to the pelicans now.

At any given time, birds are sitting on it, flying over it, swimming to it, from it, or around it. Alphas get the best spots. Lesser birds risk perching on the edges, easily tipped into the sea if an argument gets rowdy.

Watch long enough and there's always a wise guy, some bird brain who buzzes the bunch of them, fast and low, like he's going to clear the decks. There's flapping and splashing and squawking and, once the troublemaker is gone, a lot of brisk waddling about. Once the raft stops bobbing, though, the birds all wind up back in their assigned spaces. Until the next time.