The other day, early in the morning, at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, I saw a flock of birds take off; big brown birds with really long bills. They settled into a V-formation and flew silently north.
I’d guess they were California brown pelicans – but do they flock like that? If not, which of the birds that do fly in a “V” would have such large bills, and have been in California?
Yep. That would be them. You’ll also notice that they’ll often fly pretty close to the water and occasionally they’ll form an almost straight line instead of a “V”.