If you’ve been to the beaches in the past week or the South Jetty, it’s been hard to miss these lumbering visitors on the offshore rocks, ocean and river. Thousands of brown pelicans have converged on the south and central Oregon coast, with fall migration is under way to Southern California and Mexico.

“Typically, we see more birds in September and October than any other time of year,” said Roy Lowe, U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s project leader for the Oregon Coast Refuge Complex.

There were huge numbers this summer on the Columbia River, but don’t worry, Lowe said they weren’t munching on salmon smolts. These surface feeders dive in to dine on smelt, herring, sand lances and sardines. It’s the waning light of day that prompts them to wing south.

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