A wonderful bird is the pelican,His mouth can hold more than his belly can,
He can hold in his beak,Enough food for a week.
I'm damned if I know how the hell he can!
a Southern US newspaper editor and president of the American Press Humorists Association.
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Sometimes birds get caught in a storm and are literally blown away from home. This lonely looking Pelican settled down at Pleasant Lake just North of Phoenix, after he found himself an Arizona rather than a California bird. There are fish in the lake so he won't starve, but he's far from birds of his feather.
We sometimes have Sea Gulls blown into our Prescott Lakes, but I don't remember a Pelican. I don't believe anybody makes any effort to catch these birds and take them home. They have to do, as we all must do, when something unexpected happens in our lives that diverts us from our planned course. They have to manage the best way they can.
I, like many others, thought Ogdan Nash wrote the poem above, but according to several sites I visited it was Dixon Lanier Merritt.
