These video clips were shot during a land survey at Pansy Bayou this weekend.  Denise Frederick, from North Kingstown, shot the footage with a digital camcorder.  I am the narrator during the clips.  I hope this provides you with a real glimpse of how exciting it is to see these manatees in action!   This clip, entitled "Manatee Identification", provides you with a look at a few different types of scars.  Take out your scar sheets, trace some blank patterns, and try to sketch these manatees as we would in the field.   When you watch this video entitled "Mom with her calf", you will notice some socializing behavior.  Make a list of things that a baby manatee would have to learn from mom over the course of their two years together.   "Surface Resting" is a clip that demonstrates another manatee behavior.  Make a conjecture as to why we might see more surface resting in the manatee sanctuary, than we do out in the bay.

Another place that we visited this weekend is the Pelican Man's Bird Sanctuary.  It was founded in 1985 by Dale Shields, who is "The Pelican Man".  Dale found an injured brown pelican on the beach one day, brought it back to his house and put it in the bathtub, and called around Sarasota to find a place to take and treat the bird.  Dale found out that no such place existed.  Dale nursed the pelican back to health, and released him just before having a major heart attack.  This forced Dale to go on disability and he swore that if he made it out of the hospital alive, he would take care of wildlife for the rest of his life.  Dale kept that promise.

    On the picture page, I included some photos of the interesting birds I saw there.  I chose only those birds that had an interesting story behind them.  Dale has, however, since 1985 treated over 100,000 birds at his sanctuary.  Sixty percent of those birds have been rehabilitated and released.

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